10-man Chelsea hold Arsenal to draw in feisty London derby
Facing Tottenham, Bayern Munich and Chelsea inside a week - a run any side would find an extreme test - and earning two wins and a battling draw cannot be considered anything other than a positive return but Arsenal may be left feeling they could have done even better.
After superb performances in beating rivals Spurs before dispatching Bayern at the Emirates, Sunday's match with Chelsea was always going to be difficult with recovery time limited.
And preparations were further hit with key centre-back William Saliba ruled out with a knock picked up in training - the France international set for more tests.
Given that context, a 1-1 draw secured through Mikel Merino's header to leave the Gunners five points clear at the top of the table is far from a poor result. But having seen his side play against 10 men for the majority of the match following Moises Caicedo's red card, manager Mikel Arteta also admitted an opportunity to extend the lead further had been missed.
