Arsenal’s miserable start to the season continued as they were comfortably beaten by Chelsea 2-0 at The Emirates.
The Gunners will have been desperate to put on a show in front of their own fans having lost their opener on the road to newly promoted Brentford.
But Mikel Arteta’s side rarely looked like picking up a positive result as Chelsea completely outplayed their hosts.
Romelu Lukaku opened the scoring on his second Blues debut, netting the third goal of his career against the North Londoners.
And one quickly became two when Reece James turned from provider to scorer by lashing home a finish into Bernd Leno’s top corner.
The home side felt they should have been awarded a penalty before half-time when Bukayo Saka went down under a challenge from James.
However, referee Paul Tierney waved away protests, with VAR officials in Stockley Park upholding his decision.
Arsenal improved slightly after the break but never truly looked like threatening Chelsea as they slumped to their second successive defeat.
Even at this very early stage of the season, the Premier League table doesn’t make pleasant reading for Arsenal supporters with their side second bottom, on zero points and a goal difference of -4.
Such is their early-season struggles, the 2021/22 campaign is the first time in their 118-year history that they have failed to score and failed to win either of their opening two games.
The defeat also piles more pressure on Arteta, who knows that he will need a major improvement on their eighth placed finish from last season, if he is to stay in the job.
Having lost two Premier League games on the spin, Arteta has now suffered 20 Premier League defeats during his Arsenal reign.
Unfortunately for the Spaniard, he has reached that unfortunate milestone after just 60 games.
In comparison, legendary Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger didn’t reach 20 losses until his 116th match in charge.
It doesn’t get much easier for Arteta and the Gunners next week either as they face Manchester City at The Etihad before the first batch of international fixtures.
Speaking after the defeat, the Arsenal boss told Sky Sports: "They were the better team. When they play at their best, which I think they did today, they are champions of Europe, have world class players and to match at that level is difficult.
"You can always do things better. In the first half it took us a long time to regain the ball in wide areas. We concede two goals but the way the team responded and the crowd never gave up, it gave us hope in the second half.
