Arsenal are still playing catch up in the Premier League title race, and with both Manchester United and Man City in ominoius form and winningtheir own games yet again yesterday, the Gunners could not aford any slip-up today at the Emirates when Chris Hughton brought his EPL new boys Brighton and Hove Albion to town.
Without being too spectacular Arsenal got the job done and never really looked like we would mess it up, although I feel that the scoreline could have been much heavier if the second minute pile driving shot from Alexandre Lacazette had found the back of the net rather than crashing back off the post.
That would have set the tone and rocked the visitors but as it was it took another quarter of an hour for Arsenal to take the lead through Nacho Monreal who pounced after a goalmouth scrable in which Mustafi and Bellerin had shots blocked.
By then Brighton had settled though and they made a good fist of fighting back, hitting the woodwork themselves through Solly March. The Gunners had some decent chances to double the lead before the break, most notably with a four man break which we should have made more of.
It took a bit of time for us to get going after the restart but Alexis Sanchez then burst into life and really made a difference, setting up Iwobi for the second with a sublime backheel in the box. He also brought a great fingertip save and was causing all sorts of problems.
With no Ozil, though, and with Ramsey having an oiff day the Chilean’s class was often wasted and the game drifted away from us a bit towards the end. No real complaints from me though, as we got the job done and are now level on points with Chelsea. Not bad for a bunch of no-hopers eh?
Bob.