Match report – Player Ratings – Arteta response – Video
After Man City won, also in controversial fashion, earlier in the day, Arsenal were under pressure to respond when Brighton visited. It might be a little strange to reference another game before ours, but I think this is a big factor in how I felt yesterday.
Of course, I can only speak for myself, but I suspect many of you share the sentiment: winning is great, but right now the process of winning is almost torture. Arsenal plays games on a razor’s edge. It’s like watching your child walk across a high wire between two skyscrapers, with no safety net, and all you can do is hold your breath, say a prayer if you’re so inclined, and hope for the best.
This is what happens to you three times in a row second in these modern times. This is what competing against a team like Man City does to you, and it distorts the way you think. City won with a late goal against Nottingham Forest and it feels like ‘Oh, they’re inevitable’, while we beat Brighton by the same scoreline and it feels like we’re somehow lucky to get away with it.
Did David Raya save us the points with his incredible save? Almost certainly, and he deserves a lot of credit for what was a sensational piece of goalkeeping. But the reality is that after that corner was blocked by Piero Hincapie and we had a goal kick, Brighton didn’t get a single shot and we missed big chances in the closing stages of the game to make the game itself completely safe. Bukayo Saka set up Gabriel Martinelli who somehow skied over from six yards, before Saka himself looked a little tired (and possibly offside) as he went through and was tackled by Lewis Dunk.
We miss too many chances and Man City have Erling Haaland. Another aspect of the fear that is omnipresent as we see how this Arsenal team is currently struggling to score goals. They have one of the best strikers in the world, and we are currently relatively lacking in that position. There were some signs that Viktor Gyokeres was a little more on the same page as those around him, but the way he produced his best chances early in the match seemed to sum up his time at Arsenal so far.
Gabriel Jesus is back and we have high hopes that he can miraculously be the same player he was four months ago at the start of the 2022/23 season. And soon, Kai Havertz will return, taking full advantage of the special sauce players have when they’ve been injured and we hope we get the best version of them when they play again. A lot is asked of a man who has not started a competitive match for almost a year. I think all three are options for us, and my 1-2-3 in terms of preference isn’t important, but I think Haaland’s reliability and ability, like Mount Doom, will cast a dark shadow over every game if our attackers don’t get on the scoresheet.
This match was exciting in terms of score, but on the field that was anything but the case. I thought Arsenal were very good in the first half and deservedly took the lead. Martin Odegaard looked like a man finding something like the form we know he is capable of, and when Saka fed him in the 15th minute his finish inside the near post was excellent. Much more like the Odegaard we all want to see. 15 shots in the first 45 minutes, Brighton had 0. They were outplayed, outfought in every aspect of the game, and we looked to be in control.
The only thing was that the score was extended. There were moments where it could have happened, but that required an own goal in the second half. Perhaps lost in the analysis of the opponent’s score for us (it’s now 4 OGs in the last 4 games, a bit crazy), is how well Arsenal played to win that corner. We produced a nice movement of 19 passes from midfield, across the back line from right to left and back to right again, Saka and Odegaard progressed well through midfield, and Trossard eventually put the captain on the tee for a shot that was blocked behind.
Rice delivered with real quality, Georginio Rutter headed into his own goal. 2-0 Arsenal. And from there we should have gone ahead and won that match more comfortably. There were perhaps questions about substitutions, players we could have used but didn’t, and Brighton responded with a period of pressure. Was it because we defended too deep? Maybe, but they hit the post, reacted quickest to the rebound and suddenly it was 2-1 and much less comfortable.
Welcome to Knife Edge, people: every Arsenal fan in the world. Mikel Arteta got Gabriel and Gabriel Jesus fit again for Myles Lewis-Skelly and Gyokeres, and I think that has stabilized us. A little more presence at the back, a little more stickiness up top. Raya’s save from Yankuba Minteh was incredible, but also so important. I don’t think it’s impossible that we would have scored again if that had gone in, but I’m very happy that we didn’t have to experience that.
The Martinelli miss (HOW?!) really felt like the kind that would come back to haunt us, but it didn’t. 5 minutes of injury time that felt like 5 hours. That’s what it is when the stakes are high, when you’re fighting for a title. This is what we all wanted when we were stagnant in 8th place, a team that was competitive and could challenge.
“YES BUT NOT LIKE THAT!”
I’m kidding, but I think you know what I mean. I have to say that I thought Mikel Arteta looked more relaxed afterwards than I expected. Maybe he sees this differently than we do. An exciting match against a strong opponent, in which we emerged victorious and took all three points. That’s the way it works in the Premier League. That said, he said the margin of victory should have been bigger, and he felt that nervous energy in the crowd:
We all want to win so badly. Now I don’t want to lose what I have and we have to play to keep scoring and show that composure and that ability, and we should have scored the third. We have two huge chances to make it 3-1 and then it would have been different. We didn’t do that, so we have to suffer a little more.
I think the fact that we have conceded a few late goals recently has also played a role, but for me it is mainly about knowing that if you drop points in this competition it will be very difficult to catch them up again. That’s not going away anytime soon so it’s something we’ll have to deal with, although the players could make our lives easier by being a bit more clinical in front of goal.
In the cold light of day, this is a game I think we deserved to win. There were some great individual performances from the likes of Odegaard, Saka and Rice who, asked to fill in at right-back, put in an extremely energetic performance in a position he probably hasn’t played in since he was a child. We were better than Brighton in every way, and although it is difficult to score goals, we are trying to solve that problem in the best possible place: at the top of the Premier League. Worth noting, we now turn our attention to Tuesday and the visit of Aston Villa.
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Okay, I’ll leave it there for now, but hold on for an Arsecast Extra. We have already put out the call for questions Blue Sky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com with the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you have a Arseblog member on Patreonleave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The capsule should be out around noon today.
For now, have a good time.
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