Category: Football (Soccer)

Ipswich’s young English duo catch the eye, Liverpool march on and the brilliance of Brighton’s Carlos Baleba

It took them an hour of huffing and puffing, but Arsenal did something at Stamford Bridge they hadn’t managed since September – they scored an away goal in the Premier League. After toothless performances at Newcastle and Inter in the past week – and last month at Bournemouth – Gabriel Martinelli’s cute finish was itself a moment of relief, but Mikel Arteta was frustrated that his team didn’t find a winner. Their expected goals figure was lower than Chelsea’s (1.27 to 1.69) but that does not account for Leandro Trossard’s costly miskick at the death nor Kai Havertz’s would-be opener, which was just offside. The Gunners will almost always control games, especially now Martin Ødegaard is fit and firing again, but that age-old itch has not been scratched. They are not ruthless enough and they still lack a penalty box killer. Dominic Booth

Match report: Chelsea 1-1 Arsenal

Match report: Liverpool 2-0 Aston Villa

Match report: Brighton 2-1 Manchester City

Match report: Manchester United 3-0 Leicester

Match report: Nottingham Forest 1-3 Newcastle

Match report: Tottenham 1-2 Ipswich

Match report: Brentford 3-2 Bournemouth

There were people on the pitch, Chelsea substitutes to be precise, the joy of everyone connected to the club overflowing. Pedro Neto had produced the equaliser with a vicious low drive from distance and if it did not turn out to be the statement victory that Enzo Maresca and his players wanted – a first against a so-called Big Six rival – they could see the merit in a battling draw.

For Arsenal, this was a better performance than some of those of late and yet it was not the result that Mikel Arteta had called for, the one to silence the noise that has built around his club. It was another example of them losing the lead in a big game – after the draws against Manchester City and Liverpool – and it meant they have not won in four Premier League games, a sequence that has yielded two points. They are now nine behind the leaders, Liverpool. Is it too much to recover?

Ipswich had waited 22 and a half years for this, and how their vibrant support celebrated after nine seemingly interminable minutes of added time. It said plenty that their first Premier League win since April 2002 was entirely deserved, a clever first-half performance seeing them pull clear through goals from Sammie Szmodics and Liam Delap before they passed a test of resilience in the second.

Rodrigo Bentancur’s header was all that Tottenham, disjointed throughout and never quite managing a late siege, could manage and the outcome was yet another feather in the cap for Kieran McKenna. The Ipswich manager began as an academy coach at Spurs and his side’s performance was a credit to him here.

Eleven days after Manchester United routed Leicester under Ruud van Nistelrooy in the Carabao Cup here, the interim manager signed off with another easy-street win over the Foxes and so ends his four-game term unbeaten.

In all the Dutchman has three victories, and for this one he thanks Bruno Fernandes, who graced a 250th United appearance by scoring the first goal and causing enough trouble for the hapless Victor Kristiansen to bundle past his goalkeeper, Mads Hermansen, for the second.