‘We let ourselves down!’ – Chelsea ‘started too slow’ against Arsenal and can do ‘much better’, says Hudson-Odoi

Chelsea “started too slow” against Arsenal and can do “much better” says Callum Hudson-Odoi, who claims the whole squad let themselves down in the London derby.

Arsenal brought a seven-match winless run to an end in emphatic fashion against Chelsea at Emirates Stadium. Goals from Alexandre Lacazette, Granit Xhaka and Bukayo Saka wrapped up a 3-1 victory for Mikel Arteta’s side on Saturday, with Tammy Abraham’s 85th minute effort amounting to nothing more than a consolation for the visitors.

Chelsea were favourites in the lead-up to the match, but found themselves completely over-run in the first half and left it too late to start mounting a comeback.

Hudson-Odoi made a big difference after coming on for Timo Werner at the interval and set up Abraham’s goal, but he was “disappointed” by the Blues’ performance.

“It feels like we let ourselves down,” the England international said after the final whistle. “We know that we can do much better than we did. We should have put the same energy we had in the second half into the first half as well.

“We should have had the same attitude from the get-go and pushed all the way through the 90 minutes. So we’re really disappointed in ourselves.

“We started too slow, we all know that. We knew from the start it was going to be a difficult game no matter what. They’re Arsenal, they’re a good team.

“We wanted to come out here and try and get the three points but unfortunately we didn’t. We know that we started slow. In the second half we tried better to come out faster.

“We were unfortunate to concede another goal, because we got ourselves kind of back in it, but we need to push harder and keep working harder to get the three points.”

Hudson-Odoi added on his impact from the bench: “At 2-0 down you come into the game and you’re thinking how you can impact the game and how you can try to change the scoreline around. So in my head I just wanted to give the best I could and try to change the game around.

“It was unfortunate that they got another goal, but at 3-0 we still looked confident to push to try to get at least a draw back. We kept pushing until the end but unfortunately we could not get the result.”

Chelsea now find themsleves down in seventh in the Premier League table, six points adrift of leaders Liverpool – who have played a game less – but Hudson-Odoi insists the team will continue fighting for the title until the last.

“No matter where we are in the league we’re going to keep pushing until we get to number one and no matter what the game is, we’re Chelsea, we want to give our best every game no matter what and hopefully keep rising up the table,” said the winger.

“Every opponent we play against we want to try and get the three points, score goals, concede less. We’re going to keep pushing until the last day. No matter what, we’ll keep pushing.

“We’re all disappointed every time we lose. We don’t like losing. That’s the Chelsea mentality, we always want to win games. So when we do lose or we make a couple of mistakes in games, we’re all disappointed with ourselves. When we win we’re always happy, when we lose we’re disappointed, so we want to get back to winning ways and stay happy.”