'It's a long, long ride' – Alonso not disheartened by defeat to Arsenal

Xabi Alonso insisted his Chelsea team would bounce back from their narrow defeat to Arsenal, saying his team are ready for the "long, long ride" ahead of them.

Alonso was dealt a first Premier League defeat since taking charge of Chelsea at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, with Arsenal coming from a goal down to earn a 2-1 win. 

Chelsea had made a lightning start when Morgan Rogers volleyed past David Raya after just 77 seconds, which was the earliest goal Arsenal had conceded since August 2023. 

However, after seeing Riccardo Calafiori's goal disallowed, Mikel Arteta's men hit back through Kai Havertz in the 25th minute, with his shot squeezing past Emiliano Martinez. 

Arsenal's comeback was complete five minutes after the restart when Martin Odegaard collected Christos Tzolis' pass before finishing fiercely into the back of the Chelsea net. 

The result saw Arsenal come from behind to beat Chelsea in a Premier League game for the first time since October 2011 (5-3), ending a run of 14 without victory when trailing to the Blues (D4 L10), though Alonso was pleased with the efforts of his players. 

"It hurts. It hurts because a defeat has to hurt. It has been a very intense game with different moments for everything," Alonso added.

"We had chances to equalise. In the first half as well, we had a couple of chances. You're never happy if you lose.

"After we scored, there were 15 or 20 minutes where we had to defend too much, and we were struggling a bit to get control. We then had better spells with the ball.

"Overall, it was a very tight, very intense game. We could have done better with the second goal conceded too early. The guys gave everything, tried everything. It has to hurt.

"It's about preparing in the best possible way to compete in the best possible way. You need to control the overloads on the right side. It's part of the game to have these actions.

"We continue. It's game three, and it's a long, long ride."

Chelsea are the first team in Premier League history to score inside the opening five minutes in each of their first three games of a season. 

In fact, there were nine shots on target registered in this game inside the first 25 minutes, culminating with Havertz's goal – only one Premier League game on record (since 2003-04) has seen more shots on target in the opening 25 minutes (11 in West Ham vs Sunderland in May 2011).

But the Blues struggled in the final third against Arsenal's rock-solid defence. They accumulated an expected goals (xG) total of just 0.35 from their 13 shots at Raya's net. 

"It was never going to be a game to create 12 opportunities," Alonso added. They are hard to beat, they are hard to create chances [against].

"But we had three or four chances to score more than one goal. This is a process. It's still early days for us. We want to start having clean sheets, they will come.

"The players are committed to working hard, to knowing that we're on the way to competing in each game. We need to keep calm and carry on."

Alonso was also asked whether the battle was lost in midfield, with Chelsea allowing Enzo Fernandez to join Premier League rivals Manchester City on deadline day. 

They thought they had signed a replacement for Fernandez earlier this week, with Monaco's Lamine Camara identified as the man to bring to Stamford Bridge. 

But just as a £47.1m (€54.9m) deal was in the works, Monaco apparently withdrew from negotiations, though Alonso could not fault his midfield players here. 

"You need to deal with injuries, the squad is missing injured players," Alonso said. "The ones we had went with full gas. Today they tried their best and have given everything."