After Brighton’s embarrassing 5-1 defeat to Everton last week, I must admit I thought that Arsenal would have a very comfortable game at the Emirates this afternoon, but in the first half it was far from an easy ride for the Gunners.
In fact Brighton had the very best chance in the opening 45 minutes when Mitoma left Ben White floudering and made a great cross that might have been very easy for Brighton if Aaron Ramsdale hadn’t got a hand to it, but it still fell to another Seagulls player who happily blasted it over the bar.
It was a very physical first half and one thing annoyed me was that El Stupido for Brighton was not booked for either of two heavy fouls on Martinelli, which resulted in him being replaced by the ex-Seagull’s man Trossard, but he was finally carded for another lunge as Odegaard, which wasn’t half as bad as the two on Martinelli.
Other than that Trossard was given a bang at the other end but it was a bit high and ended up hitting the bar. Saka also hit the post but the ref would have disallowed it anyway, and we went off for the break at 0-0…
But suddenly, just 5 minutes after the restart, the Arsenal defence was found lacking, and Enciso was very happy to find himself alone in the Ramsdale’s penalty area after a strange deflection off Kiwior, and we found ourselves losing 1-0 with a danger we could suffer only our second defeat at home this season.
The second half, I’m afraid, saw Brighton have more possession then Arsenal, although it was good to see Reiss Nelson come on and he really tried to make things happen, and Partey was also back to replace Jorginho, who we didn’t see much off anyway.
Jesus was actually noticed in the second half after being nearly invisible in the first. But Brighton’s pressure finally paid off 5 minutes from time, when a sloppy error from (who else!) Trossard, gave Undav a great chance, which he cleverly lobbed over Ramsdale to give the points to Brighton, and they now have a great chance of playing European football next season.
Even more annoying is the fact that it was the dirty El Stupido who gave the Seagulls the third goal to give Brighton an emphatic win at the Emirates, and not many teams can manage that.
Very, very disappointing game from Arteta’s point of view, not to mention the fans….
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Video – Mikel Arteta talks about the reasons Arsenal have dropped from the top, and addresses the question if we “bottled it”
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