Arsenal 2-1 Leeds United: Whites' first-half chaos cranks up relegation jeopardy

Jesse Marsch's side found themselves with a mountain to climb inside half an hour when Luke Ayling was shown a straight red after a quickfire brace by Eddie Nketiah gave the hosts an early, comfortable lead.

With ten men, United put on an admirable showing to chase a result after the interval but Diego Llorente's second-half goal proved only a consolation as the Whites failed to find an equaliser in North London.

Elsewhere, Everton climbed out of the Premier League relegation zone with a 2-1 victory at Leicester City, causing the Whites to drop below the dreaded dotted line, level on points with 17th-placed Burnley but with a significantly poorer goal difference than their Lancashire counterparts.

Leeds' afternoon got off to a calamitous start after Nketiah pounced on a mistake by Illan Meslier to give the hosts the lead. The Whites' shot-stopper looked unaware of the former Whites loanee as he took a careless touch on an Ayling backpass to allow Nketiah to steal in and net the ball.

Nketiah, who scored three Championship goals during Leeds' promotion-winning season of 2019/2020, inflicted further misery on United as he struck a Gabriel Martinelli cut-back first time to leave Leeds trailing by two goals within ten minutes.

The visitors' afternoon went from bad to catastrophic in the 25th minute as Ayling made a wild lunge at Martinelli. Referee Chris Kavanah initially showed him a yellow card before dismissing the acting captain after reviewing the challenge on his pitch-side monitor.

Marsch acted swiftly to limit the damage, bringing on Pascal Struijk to fill in defensively at the cost of Joe Gelhardt who was hoping to impress on his second Premier League start.

But the Gunners continued to lay siege to United's goal, with a vital goalline clearance by Llorente preventing Martin Ødegaard from adding to the Gunners tally before the teams went into half-time with the score 2-0.

The Whites were consistently under the cosh again after the interval, with Marsch using all three of his changes before the hour mark in an effort to uplift his side's ailing fortunes.

Minutes after Martinelli made a pair of misses from promising shooting positions, Leeds pulled one back through Llorente, with the Spaniard sliding in to finish Kalvin Phillips' corner, flicked on by Junior Firpo. at the back post.

Meslier looked to make amends for his early mistake by going up to attack the Arsenal goal in the match's closing stages. Rodrigo came close to levelling for Leeds on the stroke of full time as another Phillips set-piece, nodded on by Firpo, found him in the box but the record signing's header was easily caught by Arsenal' keeper Aaron Ramsdale.

Arsenal XI: Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, Holding, Gabriel, Cedric, Odegaard, Elneny, Xhaka, Saka (68 - Pepe), Nketiah (90 - Lacazette), Martinelli (78 - Smith Rowe).

Unused subs: Leno, Tavares, Sambi Lokonga, Oulad M'hand, Swanson, Patino.

Leeds United XI: Meslier, Ayling, Llorente, Koch, Firpo, Klich (45 - Bate), Phillips, Raphinha (59 - Rodrigo), James, Harrison, Gelhardt (28 - Struijk).

Unused subs: Klaesson, Hjelde, Cresswell, Greenwood, Shackleton, Gray.