Chelsea 3 Arsenal 2: Marcos Alonso seals late win after Gunners fight back from 2-0 down in vain

1/36
Joe Krishnan18 August 2018

Marcos Alonso's late winner handed Chelsea the spoils in a lively London derby as Maurizio Sarri's side battled to a 3-2 victory over Arsenal at Stamford Bridge.

The Spaniard arrived late in the box to slot home through the legs of Petr Cech after some brilliant work from Eden Hazard, who came on a substitute.

The Blues took an early two-goal lead with strikes from Pedro and Alvaro Morata. But after struggling for much of the first-half, Arsenal clawed their way back into the game thanks to goals from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Alex Iwobi.

It was a thrilling first-half of clinical finishing and poor defending which would have infuriated both managers, but more Maurizio Sarri, whose side really had dominated proceedings before conceding twice in quick succession.

Early goal: Pedro put the Blues on top in the first half
PA

Chelsea grew into the game more around the hour-mark and the introduction of Hazard and Mateo Kovacic - making his debut - appeared to lift the players and the crowd.

The Belgium international was keen to get on the ball and after surging past Alexandre Lacazette down the left, he played in Alonso in the box, who made no mistake.

Arsenal had opportunities to get back into and Aaron Ramsey, off the bench for the disappointing Mesut Ozil, volleyed over from the edge of the box.

Olivier Giroud had a chance to make it 4-2 late on after Hazard set him in on goal but squandered the opportunity to score against his former club. He would have been happy, however, to finish on the winning side at Stamford Bridge as Arsenal's wait for a point under Emery goes on.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in