Arsenal drop points in disjointed draw with Chelsea

It took 60 minutes for Gabriel Martinelli to break the deadlock but Pedro Neto restored parity just ten minutes later in a game neither side looked likely to win.

Both teams were almost as bad as each other for their missed opportunities. Kai Havertz and Nicolas Jackson both had goals ruled out for offside, while Malo Gusto and Noni Madueke's headers over the bar were balanced out by Leandro Trossard blazing over late on with Robert Sanchez stranded and a line of Arsenal players proving unable to slide home an inviting ball across the face of goal in the final kick of the game.

Cole Palmer and Bukayo Saka have both been one-man wrecking crews for their sides but neither were anywhere near the peaks of their powers here. Both were kept quiet and were unconvincing on the rare occasions they were able to get the ball in attacking areas.

Come the end of the season, a point away to Chelsea will probably look perfectly respectable for any side. But the expectations placed on Arsenal this season have made it so that every time they have dropped points, it has felt like more of a failure for them than the opposition.

With the amount of making up they have to do on league leaders Liverpool already - nine points, now - that pain of yet another set-back was palpable yet again here.

It will come as particular frustration that, once again, this point earned was also two dropped from a winning position.

Liverpool have had nine leads and taken nine wins this season; Arsenal have also had nine leads and won five, with the other four ending all square, including the 2-2 draw against Arne Slot's side. That accounts for much of the difference between the two in the league table.

There was a silver lining for Arsenal in the return of Martin Odegaard. Arsenal's rise to prominence has been built on supplementing their grit and willingness to get down and dirty with genuine class and guile. Those latter ingredients have been missing over the past month or so, and results have suffered for it.

There is plenty that Mikel Arteta's side could have done better while Odegaard has been out. They coped well enough against Tottenham, Manchester City, Leicester and Southampton without him before entering their recent wobble.

But in a game filled with physicality and running and blood and not a huge amount of actual quality - a familiar state of affairs for Arsenal lately - it was left to the Norwegian to find that incisive opening on the hour, curling a lovely cross to the back post that Bukayo Saka left for Gabriel Martinelli to pick up and fire past Sanchez at the near post.

If Kai Havertz had been able to reach Mikel Merino's knocked-down header four minutes after Pedro Neto had restored parity with a wonderfully-struck equaliser, Odegaard may have provided the winner, too.

That's not how the story went, of course, and it's unfortunate for Arsenal that they have had this underwhelming little spell just before Manchester City embarked on one of their own.

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