We claimed our third win on the bounce in the Premier League 2 with a stunning 6-1 victory against Chelsea on Sunday.
We claimed an early lead at Kingsmeadow when Folarin Balogun was bundled over in the box, and while his penalty was saved, he was on hand to covert the rebound.
Balogun was at the centre of things again when, in the 21st minute, he played a delightful ball over the top of the Chelsea defence. There was still plenty to do for Mika Biereth, but the striker's brilliant acrobatic finish doubled our advantage.
Straight from kick off we extended our advantage as our high press caused the Blues all sorts of problems, and Balogun finished cooly inside the area.
Things were going well for Kevin Betsy's side but we were soon reduced to 10 men when Jude Soonsup-Bell raced towards our area and was brought down by Omar Rekik. The centre back was sent off for denying a goalscoring opportunity.
Despite being at a numerical disadvantage, Biereth added our fourth of the afternoon just before the interval with a smart finish after a flowing move forward.
We were on target again with 15 minutes remaining when Biereth poked home to complete his hat trick following a mazy run by James Olayinka - and we scored a sixth near the end through an own goal by Lucas Bergstrom.
Chelsea pulled one back in injury time when Jayden Wareham scored from close range, but it could do nothing to take the gloss off a highly satisfactory afternoon for Betsy's side.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.