Premier League: Arsenal return to form; Chelsea win at Leicester
Arsenal returned to winning ways in the Premier League with a confident 3-0 victory over Nottingham Forest but Aston Villa’s winless streak continued when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home to lowly Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Goals by Bukayo Saka, Thomas Partey and teenager Ethan Nwaneri got the Gunners back on track after four league games without a win in manager Mikel Arteta’s 250th game in charge.
Arsenal stayed in fourth spot, level on 22 points with third-placed Chelsea who began the day’s action with a 2-1 victory away at Leicester City. Leaders Liverpool have 28 points ahead of their Sunday clash with bottom club Southampton.
Arsenal began the day level on points with surprise package Forest but outclassed the Midlands club in the London rain.
The returning Saka and captain Martin Odegaard were hugely influential for Arsenal as both looked back to their best.
They combined after 15 minutes for Saka to clip a superb left-footed drive high past Forest keeper Matz Sels.
Partey curled in Arsenal’s second after 52 minutes and 17-year-old Nwaneri, on as a substitute, put the icing on the cake with his first Premier League goal late on.
“It’s not a coincidence. The team flows in a different way when (Odegaard) is playing,” Arteta said of his skipper who returned from a long injury lay-off earlier this month.
“When he is on the team you sense something different even if it’s hard to put your finger on it.”
Leicester City 1 Chelsea 2Goals from Nicolas Jackson and Enzo Fernandez helped Chelsea to a 2-1 win at Leicester City on Saturday that would have been much more comfortable if Blues winger Noni Madueke had not blocked team-mate Cole Palmer’s goalbound shot.
Jackson punished Leicester for not clearing their lines in the 15th minute, taking a touch and flicking the ball past Foxes keeper Mads Hermansen with the outside of his right boot as Chelsea dominated their hosts.
Chelsea should have gone two up in the 54th minute, but Madueke ran ahead of the play and could not get out of the way of Palmer’s close-range shot at an empty net, deflecting his effort wide before Chelsea captain Fernandez spared his blushes by scoring with a 75th-minute header.
Jordan Ayew’s stoppage-time penalty for Leicester came too late to prevent Chelsea from sealing a win that moved the third-placed Blues up to 22 points in the table.
Aston Villa have now gone six games without a win in all competitions as their early-season surge has stalled.
They needed a late headed equaliser by Ross Barkley to take a point against a Palace side who twice led.
Ismaila Sarr gave Palace the early lead before Ollie Watkins levelled and the hosts then squandered a chance to go ahead as Youri Tielemans had his penalty saved by Dean Henderson. Justin Devenny restored Palace’s lead almost immediately but the Londoners were unable to secure only their second league win.
Palace remained third from bottom with eight points but Wolves climbed out of the relegation zone with a thumping 4-1 victory away at Fulham.
Fuham 1 Wolves 4Matheus Cunha scored two superb goals to take his league tally for the season to seven and also set up a third for his side after Fulham went ahead after 20 minutes with an Alex Iwobi curler from the edge of the box.
Wolves’ second league win of the season put them on nine points from 12 games and into 17th place.
Brighton joined Arsenal and Chelsea on 22 points with a 2-1 victory at Bournemouth thanks to goals by Joao Pedro and Kaoru Mitoma as they maintained their best-ever start to a top-flight season.
The visitors did end with 10 men though after Carlos Baleba was shown a second yellow card on the hour.
Everton 0 Brentford 0Everton had 27 goal attempts at home to 10-man Brentford but could make none of them count as they drew 0-0 – a result that left them in 15th place in the table.
Brentford played half the game a man down after Christian Norgaard was dismissed for a bad challenge on Everton keeper Jordan Pickford.
