Kai Havertz brought Arsenal level with a shot, then helped put them ahead by letting the ball pass. His goal and the dummy that released Martin Ødegaard turned an early Chelsea lead into a 2–1 defeat at the Emirates on September 6, giving the reigning Premier League champions a third straight win.
Chelsea needed only 77 seconds to score. Arsenal couldn’t clear a free kick, Jorrel Hato headed the loose ball toward Morgan Rogers, and Rogers met it with a first-time volley. Xabi Alonso’s side became the first team to score inside five minutes in each of its opening three matches of a Premier League season. Once again, Chelsea had given themselves a lead to work with.
Holding it proved considerably harder. Arsenal forced the visitors back and repeatedly brought the ball into a crowded Chelsea penalty area. Riccardo Calafiori put the ball in the net during a scramble in the 12th minute, only for Ezri Konsa’s offside involvement to cancel it out. Chelsea’s lead survived that review, but Arsenal kept finding shooting opportunities.
Havertz equalized in the 25th minute. Moving in from the right, he found room to shoot with his left foot and sent the ball low past Emiliano Martínez at the near post. Chelsea had allowed him to carry the threat across the edge of the penalty area without stopping the shot. The former Chelsea forward remains one of the strongest examples in Stadio’s ranking of players who crossed London.
Arsenal couldn’t turn the rest of the half into uninterrupted pressure. Pedro Neto struck the post on a counterattack in stoppage time, leaving the teams level at the break. Five minutes after the restart, Havertz helped settle the match with the opposite decision. Christos Tzolis delivered from the left. Havertz left the pass untouched, allowing it to reach Ødegaard, and the captain had room to finish.
The connection Chelsea couldn’t contain
Havertz gave Tzolis an apparent target without becoming the end of the move. His dummy kept the pass traveling toward Ødegaard, who could attack the delivery rather than wait for another touch from his striker. Chelsea had to deal with the ball, the forward in its path and the runner beyond him. They didn’t close the final opening quickly enough.
Mikel Arteta pointed afterward to the time Havertz, Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka had missed through injury last season, and how little opportunity that had given them to play together. Their reunion gives Arsenal another way to exploit the depth behind their title defense without replacing the players at the center of the attack.
Ødegaard’s four appearances this season have produced three goals across all competitions. He managed just one in 36 games last season. The early total is encouraging, but the position he reached against Chelsea was just as useful. Arsenal’s captain wasn’t restricted to supplying the attack. He was arriving to finish it.
Alonso acknowledged the problem, pointing to Arsenal’s concentration of players on the left during the winning move. “For sure, the second goal, we could’ve done a little bit better,” he said. He also described how Arsenal forced Chelsea deep after Rogers’s opener, limiting their ability to keep the ball. An early advantage hadn’t given his team control over what followed.
For Alonso’s reshaped Chelsea team, seven goals conceded in three league matches leave a clear task. The attack is providing leads. The defending still isn’t making them reliable. Chelsea nevertheless kept the result uncertain, with Martínez denying Saka after Arsenal went ahead and Alonso’s substitutes giving the visitors fresh options.
In the 89th minute, Estêvão sent a shot toward the top corner and David Raya stretched to tip it over. Arsenal finished with nine points from nine, while Chelsea remained on six. Havertz and Ødegaard produced the combination that won the lead. Raya supplied the save that kept it worth three points.
