Arsenal beat London rivals Chelsea 3-1 for their first league win in nearly two months as goals from Alexandre Lacazette, Granit Xhaka and Bukayo Saka lifted the pressure on coach Mikel Arteta on Sunday (NZ time).
Arsenal, missing several first-choice players, took the lead in the 35th minute when Lacazette sent Chelsea goalkeeper Edouard Mendy the wrong way from the spot after Kieran Tierney was adjudged to have been clipped in the box by Reece James.
Nine minutes later, Xhaka lifted an unstoppable freekick over the wall and beyond Mendy's dive.
A visibly frustrated Chelsea coach Frank Lampard tried to turn the tide at halftime when he replaced out-of-form Germany striker Timo Werner with winger Callum Hudson-Odoi and Mateo Kovacic with Jorginho.
But Chelsea were only marginally more threatening for most of the second half and Arsenal sealed the win in the 56th minute when Saka floated what looked like a cross over Mendy and the ball hit the far post and went in.
Chelsea scored a consolation goal with five minutes to go when Tammy Abraham converted a cross by Hudson-Odoi.
Arsenal had failed to win any of their previous seven league games - losing five of them - and the win lifted them to 14th place in the table. Chelsea are sixth after their third consecutive away defeat.
Aston Villa made light of playing half the match with 10 men to thrash Crystal Palace 3-0 and move into the top six in the Premier League.
Bertrand Traore put an impressive Villa side ahead early on but the hosts had Tyrone Mings dismissed shortly before the break after picking up a second yellow card.
It made little difference as they outplayed Palace in the second half with Kortney Hause heading in from close range to double their lead in the 66th minute.
Anwar El Ghazi's rasping finish 10 minutes later wrapped up the points for Villa and they could have won by a bigger margin had Ollie Watkins not been denied by the post late on.
Villa climbed to sixth in the standings with 25 points from 13 games while Palace stay in 13th place.
Striker Watkins did not manage to increase his season's Premier League tally from six but the 24-year-old was instrumental in Villa's win with assists for each goal.
"A massive win, it's always hard going a man down. You have to press at the right times and be structured as a team and I feel like we did that," man-of-the-match Watkins said.
Leicester City came back twice to end Manchester United's away winning streak in the Premier League with a 2-2 draw at the King Power stadium.
A Jamie Vardy shot which deflected off United defender Axel Tuanzebe, five minutes from the end, secured a point for Brendan Rodgers' side after Bruno Fernandes appeared to have secured another victory on the road for United.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's side, who had won their last ten away games in the Premier League, stay third on 27 points, a point behind second-placed Leicester.
Marcus Rashford had missed a wide-open header but put United ahead in the 23rd minute with a cool finish after being slipped in by Fernandes before Harvey Barnes equalised eight minutes later with a fine shot from the edge of the box.
Rashford had a great chance to put United back in front on the hour but his powerful drive was well saved by the right hand of Kasper Schmeichel.
Two minutes later Anthony Martial had an effort disallowed for offside but the influential Fernandes restored United's lead in the 79th minute, drilling into the bottom corner after being found inside the area by substitute Edinson Cavani.
Again though, the lead was short-lived as Vardy's first time shot on the half-turn from a low cross from Ayoze Perez, went in off Tuanzebe and earned a point for the Foxes.
"Disappointed we didn't win today because we had loads of big chances and we could've finished it off but they're a dangerous side," said Solskjaer.
"One point is not the worst result but we're disappointed to not get the three points against a tough side."
Reuters.
