Premier League: Arsenal regains 5-point lead as struggling Liverpool drops more points at Anfield

Another win for Arsenal. More misery for Liverpool and its under-fire manager Arne Slot.

While Arsenal accelerated its Premier League title charge with a 2-0 victory over Brentford to regain a five-point lead, Liverpool needed a late own-goal just to salvage a 1-1 draw with Sunderland at Anfield.

Slot will be back under pressure, with his team languishing in eighth place in a disappointing title defense and his decision to leave star forward Mohamed Salah out of the starting lineup for a second straight game likely to be heavily scrutinized.

“It’s clear,” Slot said, “that teams that play us now think they can get a result.”

Arguably a bigger shock came at Elland Road, where Chelsea fell to a 3-1 loss to Leeds in a blow to its hopes of challenging for the title.

Chelsea dropped to fourth place and nine points adrift of Arsenal, which stretched its unbeaten run in all competitions to 18 matches and is looking good for a first league title since 2004.

Squad depth

Arsenal’s strength in depth was on show in the comfortable win over Brentford that maintained the team’s unbeaten record at Emirates Stadium this season.

The leaders were without first-choice center backs Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba because of injury, while manager Mikel Arteta chose to start with stars Bukayo Saka, Jurrien Timber and Eberechi Eze on the bench.

Two of the back-ups combined for the 11th-minute opener, as Mikel Merino headed in Ben White’s cross, before Saka came on as a substitute and scored the second goal with a shot that crawled over the line in stoppage time.

Injuries are mounting up for Arteta, though — especially at center back. Cristhian Mosquera has been filling in for Saliba but also faces a spell out after limping off late in the first half. Midfielder Declan Rice was withdrawn with a suspected calf problem in the 83rd.

With Arsenal in the middle of a run of games every three or four days, Arteta called on soccer authorities to think of players’ welfare.

“Rest? That’s quite a positive word to use,” Arteta said of his team selection. “We had to make some changes.

“We can play minutes,” he added, “but if they can please give us just a little more time to recover and to make the welfare of these players a little bit easier, that would be great.”

Manchester City is Arsenal’s closest challenger at the moment and won 5-4 at Fulham in a wild match on Tuesday.

Wirtz denied

Florian Wirtz is still waiting for his first goal for Liverpool since his offseason move from Bayer Leverkusen, with his shot for the 81st-minute equalizer deflecting off Sunderland defender Nordi Mukiele and spinning into the net for what officially went down as an own-goal.

Sunderland, which is in sixth place on its return to the top flight and defying most pundits’ pre-campaign expectations, benefitted from a deflection to take the lead in the 67th. Chemsdine Talbi’s long-range effort hit Virgil van Dijk on the leg and ricocheted into the far corner beyond Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker.

The 2-0 win at West Ham on Sunday ended Liverpool’s three-match losing run but proved to be only brief respite for Slot and his underperforming players.

“Far too many times this season we don’t concede a lot of chances but the ones that we do go in,” Slot said. “We weren’t lucky enough to get the win over the line but in recent weeks we would have lost this game so that is a positive.”

Unexpected loss

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca had little to cheer in the loss at Leeds, which came just three days after his team of 10 men battled gamely to hold Arsenal to a 1-1 draw.

“A very poor night,” Maresca said. “They (Leeds) deserved to win the game, they were better in all aspects.”

Leeds led 2-0 at halftime following goals by Jaka Bijol and Ao Tanaka. Pedro Neto reduced the deficit in the 50th, but a defensive mistake by Tosin Adarabioyo led to Leeds striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin tapping in to make it 3-1.

One positive for Chelsea was the return of playmaker Cole Palmer, who came on as a second-half substitute for his first appearance in more than two months because of a groin injury.

Still winless

Last-place Wolverhampton remained without a win this campaign after losing 1-0 at home to Nottingham Forest thanks to a second-half goal by Brazilian striker Igor Jesus. After 14 rounds, Wolves have just two points.

Aston Villa came from 2-0 down to win 4-3 at Brighton, post a fourth straight victory and climb into third place above Chelsea. Ollie Watkins scored twice for Villa.

Crystal Palace beat Burnley 1-0 thanks to Colombia wing back Daniel Munoz’s goal.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer