Chelsea v Arsenal: Premier League – live!

46 mins: Emerson’s cross from the left bounces across the area without anyone getting anything on it, and when it comes back in Kante tries to jink his way into a shooting position, then gives up and just shoots anyway, straight into Mustafi.

The players are back out, and Tammy Abraham is about to kick off. “I dunno,” writes David Flynn, “we’ve all seen Luiz this season, that was about as close to winning the ball as he’s gotten in a long time.”

Key match stat dept: Chelsea have had nine shots, three on target. Arsenal have had no shots. None. Not one.

“David Luiz’s calculation was ‘definitely conceding a goal’ v ‘probably conceding a goal’,” says Graeme Thorn. “Obviously he thought that Bernd Leno had a better chance of saving the penalty than he ultimately did. It’s exactly the same calculation that Luis Suarez did so infamously against Ghana – concede a goal or have a chance of not conceding a goal. As it happens, the penalty was missed, so it paid off for Uruguay.”

Similar offences, but while Suarez’s handball was in its way inspired – as his team would have had no time to recover from falling behind at that stage of the game, so it was worth doing anything to keep the ball out of the net – David Luiz’s foul was just stupid, as Arsenal would be more likely to get something out of the game at 0-1 but 11 v 11 with more than an hour to play than they would at 0-0 but 10 v 11, and certainly a lot more likely than at 0-1 and 10 v 11.

“Did the referee judge that there was absolutely no way Luiz was trying to get to the ball during that challenge?” asks David Flynn. “The rules clearly say that if a peno is given and there was an attempt to get the ball then it should be a yellow.” There was no attempt to play the ball, or at least not before David Luiz wrestled Abraham to the floor. VAR checked it, and agreed.

45+3 mins: That’s all for now. Chelsea lead by a man and a goal, and Hudson-Odoi has been excellent.

45+2 mins: Pepe kicks the ball into Emerson’s arm, from all of two feet away, and then gets really angry when there’s no free-kick.

45+1 mins: Into stoppage time we roll, and there’ll be about two minutes of it.

45 mins: Kovacic heads wide from Hudson-Odoi’s cross. Chelsea really haven’t impressed since the penalty.

43 mins: An excellent attempted tackle from Xhaka on Hudson-Odoi, which involves literally lying down in front of him. It doesn’t work.

38 mins: A good spell for Arsenal, who cap it with a corner. “Interested in your thoughts on this,” writes Lee Madden. “Although there was a mistake by Mustafi, surely the more critical error is from David Luiz. He could have tried to get goalside of Abraham, not jumped in from behind, gone back to the goal line or just let him score. Surely any of those options were better than tackling Abraham from behind? His error was far worse than Mustafi’s.”

It’s like Steve Cook’s handball for Bournemouth at the weekend: there is an instinctive streak of idiocy that some players can’t control. In this instance, if David Luiz doesn’t bring down Abraham Chelsea take the lead; if he does bring down Abraham Chelsea have a fantastic chance to take the lead and get to play the remainder of the match against 10 men. Obviously letting Abraham score is better for his team, but his idiot instinct took over.

32 mins: Save! Hudson-Odoi hits a vicious shot with the outside of his right boot, which Leno beats away.

31 mins: The home fans are in full voice now: “He’s one of our own, he’s one of our own, David Luiz, he’s one of our own!” they cry.

30 mins: Tactical update: Xhaka has dropped into the defence, and Ozil has shifted back into the heart of midfield.

Leno does well to stand up and force Jorginho, whose penalty-taking technique seems to rely on convincing goalkeepers to fall over using his Jedi mind-powers, to find a corner, which is precisely what he does!

27 mins: This is horrific self-destruction. Mustafi hopelessly fluffs a pass back to Leno, Abraham nips in, rounds the keeper and is brought down from behind by David Luiz, leaving the referee with no option but to point to the spot and wave red!

26 mins: They’re not booing now!

25 mins: Arsenal engage in another prolonged spell of largely aimless passing. Worth doing just to stem the Chelsea tide, methinks. David Luiz is being booed by a good portion of the crowd, and all this defensive passing is giving everyone many chances to vent their fury.

23 mins: Another left-wing Chelsea corner is played short and then worked back to the original taker, and again the cross when it comes is overhit and floats straight out of play, this time missing the bar by quite a distance.

21 mins: Another thing Chelsea win is the first yellow card, which is shown to Emerson for a foul in several stages on Pepe.

19 mins: Chelsea have been the better team by a distance, and seem to have the run of the right flank, where Martinelli and Saka aren’t quite cutting the mustard.

16 mins: Chelsea hit the bar! Hudson-Odoi, having moved to the left to take a corner, gets the ball back. His right-footed cross worries Leno, but clips the top of the bar on its way out of play.

15 mins: What a chance for Chelsea! Hudson-Odoi is again involved, beating Martinelli on the right and sending in a deep cross which Rudiger heads back into the mixer, leaving Abraham with a free header from six yards! He heads too close to Leno, who catches.

13 mins: Arsenal settle down, taking the pace out of the game by engaging in some harmless defensive interplay.

10 mins: Nearly! It’s an excellent delivery, which Rudiger looks like he’s going to head in and then doesn’t touch, which perhaps explains why Christensen is so astonished to see it reach him that it bounces off his face and out for a goal-kick.

9 mins: Hudson-Odoi is the source of all things good for Chelsea in these early exchanges. Now he links with Abraham, leading to another corner.

8 mins: The Arsenal physio is gamely pretending to be doing something to Mustafi while the defender lets the pain subside.

7 mins: An excellent move from Chelsea ends with Kovacic’s shot thundering into a particularly sensitive part of Mustafi’s anatomy. “I’m missing Unai Emery,” says Charles Antaki. “You knew where you were with him; confused play; misplaced running about; absent defenders; general vapidity and underachievement. With Arteta one just can’t be sure, and the team might even play very well (though tonight something tells me we might be revisiting old certainties).”

5 mins: Nothing comes of Chelsea’s corner and Arsenal run up the other end and win one of their own, and then another, neither of which come to anything.

3 mins: Another Saka error, this time in defence. He misjudges a long ball to Hudson-Odoi, who is thus able to bring it down (with a fabulous first touch) and smack in a corner that deflects off David Luiz for a corner.

2 mins: Arsenal attack down the left, a move that ends with Saka either crossing terribly or shooting abysmally, it’s hard to tell.

Elsewhere, Watford and Southampton are a goal up at Aston Villa and Crystal Palace respectively, while Everton lead Newcastle 1-0 and Bournemouth are winning a match, 2-0 at home to Brighton. The last two teams they led at any stage were Arsenal and Chelsea.

“The photo of Hudson-Odoi’s shirt is clearly not from tonight’s game as next to it sits Tomori’s shirt who isn’t in the squad. This is fake news and I demand an enquiry,” rages Geoff Seeley. Curious. Either he was in the initial matchday squad, or he likes to go John Terry and wear full matchday kit under his civvies.

For completists, this is the away dressing-room at Stamford Bridge, which if not exactly no-frills is certainly reduced-frills. Interesting fact: Arsenal have a 100% record when wearing their home kit in away games this season (they’ve only done it once):

On the plus side, Chelsea have employed an absolutely elite towel-roller. That is some faultless towel-rolling right there.

I get the idea of painting encouraging words and phrases on the dressing-room wall, but I do think that “sacrifice together” sounds a little more satanist than is ideal.

Mikel Arteta on Arsenal’s form:

I think performance-wise we’ve been better than results-wise, because late goals in the last two games cost us four points and it could have been a different situation. Today’s game is a different situation. We come in with a clear idea to try to win the game, and we will do that.

And on Hector Bellerin’s return – he has only started three league games this season, the last on 5 December:

He’s been training for the last few days and he’s looking sharp and good, and I wanted to give opportunities for everybody. So let’s see how he does.

Frank Lampard on losing to Newcastle:

The lads were down afterwards. I couldn’t complain about the effort, we had a long go at it, and it was a bit of sign of some of our season, particularly in home games, where we create a lot, we get in good areas and we don’t have that finishing touch, and then you get sucker-punched. But it’s important we see today as the game it is. It’s different – it’s Arsenal, a London derby, a big game for us, so that one now is in the back of our minds and we look forwards.

And on a lack of goals:

It’s something to work on. In terms of our home form we’re creating a lot and not converting a lot. So that’s something we’re working on a lot, so the players can get up the pitch and get into good areas, and then we need more killer instinct, or more composure or whatever it is. I hope to see it tonight, against a team that maybe will come out against us.

And on bringing Kovacic in for Mount:

Mason’s played a lot, Kovacic has played a lot of big games for us this season. I think midfield it games like this is crucial. Can we control that area and get a grip of it, and then get our wingers into the game? We’ll see.

This is a killer stat, as far as Arsenal’s hopes are concerned:

The names of the people playing in this game of association football are as follows:

Chelsea: Arrizabalaga, Azpilicueta, Christensen, Rudiger, Emerson Palmieri, Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic, Hudson-Odoi, Abraham, Willian. Subs: Alonso, Barkley, Pedro, Caballero, Zouma, Mount, Batshuayi.
Arsenal: Leno, Bellerin, Mustafi, Luiz, Saka, Torreira, Xhaka, Pepe, Ozil, Martinelli, Lacazette. Subs: Ceballos, Maitland-Niles, Holding, Martinez, Willock, Guendouzi, Nketiah.
Referee: Stuart Attwell.

There are five other games happening this evening, all of which fall under Nick Ames’ purview here:

Only Liverpool have won more away points than Chelsea, but at home they’re really not up to much, having won 17 points – the same as Brighton, Sheffield United, Wolves and, indeed, Arsenal, and only three more than relegation-threatened Watford and Aston Villa. The question is whether Arsenal, who won their first away game of the Premier League season back in August and have repeated the feat just once since, are the team to expose this, particularly with goal-conjuring predator Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang suspended.

In other news, Arsenal are the division’s top drawers, 47.8% of their matches so far having ended in stalemate, but there has only been one goalless Gunners game in all competitions (compared with six 2-2s). Chelsea meanwhile really don’t do draws at all: only one in the league since August, and even the draws they have had (in all competitions this season: 2-2, 1-1, 2-2, 4-4, 2-2 and 1-1) have been quite fun.

Plus, expectation! “It’s very, very important for us to win this game,” says Mikel Arteta. “We need to win.” On which subject, here’s some pre-match reading from the Arsenal camp: