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Two set‑piece goals conceded and a player sent off told a familiar story for Chelsea as they lost to Arsenal, leaving them six points adrift of the Premier League’s top four and down to sixth in the table.

Pedro Neto’s cynical foul on the counter-attacking Arsenal winger Gabriel Martinelli made any comeback difficult in Sunday’s 2-1 defeat, but the broader statistics paint a more worrying picture.

His dismissal was Chelsea’s seventh in the Premier League red card of the season – the most of any other club – leaving them just two short of matching the competition record with 10 matches still to play.

Three minutes earlier, Jurrien Timber had headed in what would prove to be the winner, the fifth set‑piece goal Arsenal have scored in their last three matches, continuing a trend that has marked Liam Rosenior’s early tenure at Stamford Bridge.

It had not all been negative though. Despite falling behind early when William Saliba headed in from a corner, Reece James’s delivery forced a Piero Hincapie own goal to level the scores just before half-time.

Chelsea had been in the ascendancy but, one week after conceding both a red card and a set‑piece goal at home to Burnley, they again dropped points for the same reasons at Emirates Stadium.

“If we don’t eradicate the set-play issues that have started to creep into our game and our discipline issues, then for all of the good things we do in the game, we are not going to get what we want to achieve,” Rosenior told BBC Radio 5 Live.

Chelsea have received nine dismissals across all competitions, although former manager Maresca, who was sent off for over‑celebrating a last‑minute winner against Liverpool, does not count in that total.

They are one short of equalling the joint record of eight different players sent off in a single season, held by Sunderland. They are two away from matching the Premier League record for the most red cards in a campaign.

This is far from a new issue.

Chelsea, bottom of the Premier League fair‑play table, finished second‑bottom last season under Maresca and bottom the year before under Mauricio Pochettino.

Maresca initially played down concerns before later launching his own review of the team’s indiscipline prior to his departure. Rosenior, meanwhile, believed he had tightened up Chelsea’s disciplinary problems – only to see red cards return in consecutive matches.

“I have respect for the previous manager Enzo [Maresca]. I don’t speak about what happened before but it is starting to happen with me,” Rosenior said.

“That’s something I felt we had addressed. We went 10 games without a red card, now [we have had] two in two games and that’s a problem we need to solve.”

Why are Chelsea getting so many players sent off?

One possible factor, which is played down internally in west London, is that they have the youngest squad in the Premier League and lack natural leaders.

Former England defender Matthew Upson told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It is costing them. I don’t think it is something you can address at this point – you’re in March.

“It is something that is said in pre‑season. It is cultural and you build it into the club. The players buy into it and they police it. It is about being measured and controlled at the right moment.

“Again, they are young as well. The younger you are, the more susceptible you are to those situations.”

One of the leaders tasked with helping halt Chelsea’s disciplinary slide, Reece James, told Sky Sports: “Every time it’s someone different, not the same player. Internally we need to review and keep improving. It’s a problem.

Only West Ham (15) have conceded more than the nine set-piece goals Chelsea have conceded in the Premier League this season.

Again, it is a longstanding issue. While Chelsea have improved in terms of attacking output, defending dead‑ball situations has remained a problem from Pochettino’s tenure through to the early weeks of Rosenior’s.

Chelsea have now conceded 10 set‑piece goals in 13 matches since Rosenior’s appointment in early January – five of them against Arsenal, who knocked them out of the Carabao Cup with a 4–2 aggregate win in the semi‑finals.

Only last weekend, Rosenior introduced all of his central defenders in an attempt to protect a 1–0 lead against Burnley with 10 men, only for his side to concede an added‑time equaliser to Zian Flemming.

Before this latest defeat, no team had conceded more expected goals from set pieces than Chelsea’s 14.05 in the Premier League this season.

The women’s US Half Marathon Championship race in Atlanta ended in controversy after a guide vehicle took the three leading athletes the wrong way.

Jess McClain was comfortably in front of Ednah Kurgat and Emma Hurley at the head of the race when they were led off the course.

Molly Born, who had been more than a minute behind, ended up winning the race – which served towards qualification for the World Road Running Championships in September.

Carrie Ellwood and Annie Rodenfels were second and third respectively, while McClain ended up ninth as Hurley finished 12th and Kurgat in 13th.

USA Track and Field (USATF) said a protest by the three athletes taken the wrong way was rejected before an appeal was submitted.

It added that the jury of appeals found that “the course was not adequately marked at the point of misdirection” but that there was “no recourse within the USATF rulebook to alter the results order of finish”.

It added: “This race was a selection event for the 2026 World Road Running Championships. That team is not officially selected until May.

While Manchester United’s hierarchy still need to answer big questions about Michael Carrick’s future, a significant one was answered on Sunday.

This one was asked of the players by the interim boss in the dressing room as they trailed at half-time to an excellent Crystal Palace side.

In his short seven-game tenure, Carrick had not had to deal with that situation before. Deficits had been limited to ‘in half’ and been corrected before they had come to an end.

“Things have been going in our favour, so at half-time I said to them, ‘here’s something I’ve been waiting for, this moment’,” said Carrick. “It was, ‘go on then, what are we going to do about it?’.

“You’ve got to find a way in games sometimes. It was a case of how do we react?”

Palace manager Oliver Glasner argued Carrick and his players benefited from a significant stroke of luck, the ‘Old Trafford bonus’ as he expressed fury at Maxence Lacroix crucial 56th-minute dismissal and subsequent penalty equaliser for United.

Either way, it is irrelevant now.

Carrick got his answer through a nerveless Bruno Fernandes spot-kick and Benjamin Sesko’s powerful header – the striker’s seventh goal in eight games since Ruben Amorim’s dismissal as head coach on 5 January.

United are now third in the Premier League. They have not been as high as that since the final day of the 2022-23 campaign under Erik ten Hag.

Six wins and a draw from his seven games in charge means it is seven and two overall for Carrick, who beat Arsenal and drew with Chelsea in the Premier League during his first stint as temporary boss following Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s dismissal in November 2021.

That equals the joint-best return from the first nine games as manager from anyone in the competition’s history.

Ange Postecoglou had that record on his own, but the way it turned out for the Australian at Tottenham underlines the point that not too much can be read into current form.

But the sustained singing for Carrick as he made his way round the pitch with his players on a lap of appreciation after the final whistle – missed by Luke Shaw after he was substituted in the first half due to illness – suggests the supporters have already delivered their verdict.

United’s powerbrokers, though, may be wary of moving too fast by making a permanent appointment.

Seven years ago, Carrick was part of Solskjaer’s backroom team as the Norwegian started his temporary tenure with eight successive wins in all competitions and took 32 points from a possible 36, then finished the campaign with eight from eight games after he was confirmed in the post.

But, with Thomas Tuchel already extending his contract with England and Carlo Ancelotti about to with Brazil, providing Carrick can navigate the club’s journey back to the Champions League, we are already reaching the point where it would look more of a gamble not to hand him the job permanently.

It is beginning to feel more of a risk to appoint Glasner – despite his Europa League and FA Cup triumphs – when he leaves Palace at the end of the season.

Or Roberto de Zerbi, whose football is undoubtedly excellent – or any of the other candidates, rather than stick with someone who has gone about his work in such a calm and unfussy way while, crucially, dealing with the spotlight constantly trained on Old Trafford.

By instinct, Carrick does not feel comfortable talking about his own part in United’s advancement. Answers tend to be prefaced with the word ‘we’ rather than ‘me’.

However, the 44-year-old was willing to concede that having his song echoing round Old Trafford was a pleasant feeling.

“This place means a lot to me, so to have so much positivity, with everyone enjoying coming to the games and obviously for me to have an influence on that, of course it feels good, I’m not going to lie,” he added.

“The players have to take a lot of credit for that in terms of what they put on the pitch.

Glasner was left frustrated at how Palace had twice led United at half-time this season and ended up with nothing on both occasions.

To him, this one hinged on the moment 11 minutes into the second half when Palace goalscorer Lacroix made a grab for Matheus Cunha. The initial contact was certainly outside the box, but continued into it and the United forward flung himself to the floor.

Referee Chris Kavanagh gave the penalty and, after reviewing the incident on the pitchside monitor, sent Frenchman Lacroix off.

Glasner described it as the ‘Old Trafford bounce’.

“It’s a very hard decision because the foul started outside the box and usually the foul has to be given where it starts,” he said.

“On the other side, Matheus Cunha was very smart to wait until he’s inside the box to fall.

“Maybe he could have conceded the red card with the foul outside the box, this is what you can discuss, but it’s where the foul starts. Maybe it was the Old Trafford bounce.”

While Glasner felt it was a ‘home’ decision, vastly experienced former Premier League assistant referee Darren Cann said the ruling was right.

“Kavanagh took his time and used all his experience to rightly ascertain that contact continued inside the penalty area and awarded a penalty kick,” he added.