Brighton - on the bus. The good, the bad and the ugly.
The ugliest win of the season just so happens to coincide with one of the most memorable evenings in the title race.
I’ll be honest—I watched this one in the background due to some personal troubles (and to be fair, it might have been for the best), so my remarks might not be spot on.
Arteta stuck with the same XI, swapping Trossard for Martinelli (predictable enough) and Saliba for Mosquera, which definitely wasn’t. As the gaffer shared in the presser, Bill, who was our most composed defender against Chelsea, finished that match with a minor knee injury and had to be left out. Luckily, the next match where he’s a must-have is in two weeks (the return leg against Leverkusen) followed by the Carabao Cup final.
The game kicked off with another unnecessary clanger from Raya. David is a brilliant keeper, but he becomes a nervous wreck under the high press. He’s been making rash decisions in practically every game for the last month. Podcasters and bloggers keep raving about his shot-stopping, but we can’t just ignore this side of his game. He doesn’t radiate calmness, and it’s clearly affecting the back four. Petr Cech might not have had Raya’s agility, but he was a massive calming presence. That, I believe, was a major reason why Chelsea still hold that impressive record for fewest goals conceded in a Prem season—a record nobody has really come close to.
Luckily, we’ve got several players in the squad who thrive on being the hero when the team is up against it.
And Gabriel is one of them. He sprinted back and cleared it behind the goal line—the only safe place to stop Brighton’s pressure. Less than ten minutes after, Saka scored the first only goal of the game. Bukayo wasn’t quite the saviour or the star man today, but he took a decent shot which, after a deflection, found its way into the Brighton net.
To be fair, the trajectory wasn’t too tricky and Verbruggen should have saved it. And here, despite my earlier criticism, I can confidently say David Raya has the quality and would actually have kept that out. For the rest of the first half, it was mostly Gabriel’s sliding blocks, Rice’s vital touches in the box, and a whole lot of scrapping. The first-half stats made for grim reading for Arsenal:
0.03 xG in the first hour. Hurzeler was fuming on the touchline and in his post-match presser. To be honest, the German coach made a bit of a fool of himself. There was no need to have a pop at Arsenal’s style of play. Any neutral could see Brighton deserved at least a point, and nobody would blame them for the performance. Moreover, looking at the results this weekend—Liverpool and United losing, City drawing—to slate Arsenal for grinding out three points seems way off the mark.
Usually, such outbursts stem from one of two things. Either the manager is helpless and the anger comes from a lack of ideas—which I don’t think is the case here, given Brighton took two draws off us last season—or the coach is just jealous. Hurzeler is also a young manager and seems to somehowtake Arteta’s success a personally.
There is, however, only one proper way to react to it.
Piero Hincapie was a fairly pricey signing who didn’t initially justify the fee. He’s not great at keeping the ball under pressure, he’s not the most elegant passer, and I’m not yet sure he’s clicked with his teammates. But he’s a bloody fighter! He’ll run up and down that wing as many times as it takes, he’ll get stuck into duels, and he’ll put his body on the line just to rattle the opposition.
In a game where we couldn’t string three passes together and had to cling to that deflected goal for ninety-odd minutes, that’s exactly the type of player we needed. Mosquera is getting rinsed by Minteh in second half, creating Brighton’s best chance of the evening, Arteta hooks him for Calafiori, shifts Hincapie to right centre-back (where he’s never played before), and Hincapie sorts it out simply by being a constant nuisance to the opponent.
Someone mentioned we’ve got a second Gabriel in the squad, and I have to agree. Slightly smaller and considerably quicker, but he’ll fight for every ball and won’t give the opposition a second to breathe.
The attack, however, was completely disappointing again. There wasn’t a single player who could hold onto the ball and act as the engine for a counter-attack—someone to skip past defenders and win a foul to give the teammates a breather. Every time I saw our forwards lose it in their own half, I could almost see this moment in my head.
In the final minutes of a CL quarter-final against a peak Real Madrid side full of true world class players, Thierry Henry owned the ball and the match. We have nobody even close to that sort of swagger right now, and that’s something we need to address sooner rather than later if we want to be a real powerhouse in Europe.
Those players cost a fortune, but their impact is immeasurable. We all hoped Saka would be that man, but that remains a bit of a pipe dream for now. Havertz, given 30 minutes by Arteta, gave us a bit of an anchor upfront and we managed a couple of half-chances, but he couldn’t link the play. I won’t even go into the disappointing shift from our number 10, who definitely has the habit turn up when we are at our toughest.
One final positive was that Arteta finally realised he needs to rotate his midfield. At the weekend it was Rice; yesterday it was Zubimendi dropped to the bench to give Norgaard some minutes. I thought Norgaard did well. It’s hardly surprising, given he spent half his Brentford career defending under the cosh against the big teams. His ability to find a vertical pass is definitely useful. If only we had someone on the end of it to connect the attack further.
Our result was good, City’s was bad, and our performance was the ugliest we’ve seen all season. But the bottom line is this: if we win our two home games against Everton and Bournemouth (which will be bloody tough, but at least we’ll have the home crowd behind us), we’ll head to the Etihad in a position where we can afford to lose. In that scenario, I’d actually back us to get something. It’s still early days, but our position has definitely steadied.
Our next one is against a League One side, so everyone with high minutes should be getting a rest. The exciting one to watch is Max Dowman. The fact that he’s only 16 or 17 and hasn’t properly featured in the league campaign should take the pressure off the lad. He’s got really nothing to lose, he can afford to be anonymous, which is why I’m hoping he can come on and cause a bit of havoc!