Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Quotes round-up Arsenal lost a game for the first time this season yesterday, going down 3-0 to Brighton away from home. There’s no getting away from how poor this performance was, but it’s worth pointing out that any criticism in today’s blog is only about yesterday, because otherwise we’ve been really impressive with seven wins from seven until the wheels came off at the Amex Stadium. Jurrien Timber was fit and back in at right, Bruno Guimaraes started in midfield, and beyond that the team was as you’d expect. How we played though, well that was something I didn’t really expect. It started early with jittery stuff at the back, not least from David Raya whose lack of assurance on the ball felt like it transmitted itself to the team. Brighton pressed high and pressed hard, and it rattled us, Charalampos Kostoulas had a sight of goal from inside the box and fired wide. It took us about 15-20 minutes to come to terms with it and exert some measure of control, but we didn’t really threaten at all in their final third when we found that. On the half hour mark, Brighton went ahead through a fine strike from Pascal Gross. It was very good finish, clipping the bottom of the post before nestling into the back of the net, but I think Gabriel had to do more to close him down before he took the shot. He gestured to Riccardo Calafiori to drop off and be mindful of the runner, and I think the Brazilian gave him too much time and space. He has too much quality to do that, and he punished us ruthlessly. I also think Raya was just a little slow to react as he was beaten at his near post. We continued to be careless in possession, Guimaraes in midfield gave it away too often, and didn’t seem to have the legs to recover, but just before half-time we had a very decent chance to equalise on the break. I do wonder if Martin Odegaard should have played the pass earlier with his right foot, but the ball did come to Bukayo Saka in front of goal with just the keeper to beat. He is slightly off balance and has to readjust, and it’s not a tap-in either, but given what happened next his tame finish does fall under the spotlight more. Brighton broke upfield, again we were guilty of standing off and giving Kostoulas too much space to get his shot off. The 19 year old said thank you very much and rifled the ball into the bottom corner to make it 2-0 just before the break. Perhaps the scoreline didn’t quite represent how the opening 45 minutes had gone from a statistical point of view, but I don’t think there was any doubt which side looked the most dangerous, and it wasn’t us. The second half began with more Raya imprecision on the ball, Kostoulas shot wide again, and when Kai Havertz was sloppy in our defensive third and gave away a corner, Brighton got the third goal. The ball was floated towards the back post, the Arsenal defending was non-existent, and Chema Andres was there to head home. That was always going to be game over given how we were playing. There were changes, with Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi replacing Guimaraes and Timber. That saw Rice go to right back for a while before it was decided the Spanish international would go out there. Brighton then missed a glorious headed chance to make it 4-0, the ball going just wide of the post with Raya in no-man’s-land. Eberechi Eze and Viktor Gyokeres came on for Odegaard and Tzolis, Saka didn’t make good contact with his right footed shot after being sent in behind by an excellent Ezri Konsa pass, and our best chance of the game came when Gyokeres played a smart pass over the top for Havertz who lacked composure with just the keeper to beat. I feel like he could have shifted the ball to his favoured left foot and placed the finish, instead he snatched at with his right and the foot of Bart Verbruggen denied him the goal. He should score, no two ways about it, and it’s a bad miss. There were more chances for Brighton too. Georginio Rutter shot over from close range when he probably should have found the back of the net, Gabriel misjudged a cross and flicked it onto a Brighton player from close range only for the ball to go straight at Raya, and the Arsenal keeper made a fantastic low save from close range when we seemed to just give up defending and allowed their man all the time and space he would have wanted in our box. In short, we were pretty lucky this ended just 3-0 because it could have been a lot worse. Afterwards, Arteta praised the opposition, but pulled no punches on the performance of his team, saying: There were certain basics you need to accomplish in football, especially in the Premier League that we were very far from. Winning the first duel, the second ball, that put to the game, especially how direct they were in a really difficult place for us. On top of that, especially in our own half, we didn’t respect any of the principles of play to get out of that man-to-man situation. That puts us on the back foot, so it was very difficult to control the game. When we had moments of dominance and control, we did open them up, but we didn’t finish those actions with the quality that is required to compensate for the things we did wrong. So overall, they deserved to win the game, and it’s a big lesson for us. He also spoke about how he felt from the first throw-in that something was wrong with his team, and while I think we can look at yesterday at something of an aberration, particularly based on what we’ve done so far this season, it doesn’t mean there aren’t questions. Should he have done something more quickly if he felt it wasn’t working, or have those players earned enough trust for him to let them try and put it right without his intervention? If we knew Brighton were going to press high, and we were struggling to play through it, why didn’t we have more of a Plan B? I know it’s not necessarily in our nature to play long, but sometimes you have to look at how the game is going and adjust accordingly. I know there’s a balance, if you beat the press you have time and space to play into, but if you can’t do that consistently, you have to have another option and we didn’t seem willing to use that often enough. I think we also have to apply the context of this being our fourth consecutive away game. Which isn’t to make any excuses, but it might well be part of it. The other thing that really stood out to me is that this is an Arsenal team devoid of any real pace, and I wonder if Brighton felt more comfortable pressing as high as they did knowing that we didn’t have that outlet who could really hurt them in moments of transition if we won the ball back in our own half. It’s something I worried about when we decided to let Gabriel Martinelli go, the manager wasn’t willing to use Noni Madueke (the only other player in the squad with real pace), and on a day when you play as poorly as we did, you look sluggish and pedestrian because you lack anyone on the pitch with a quality that is really important at this level of the game, and one we quite obviously lack. The bottom line is that Brighton absolutely deserved the win. There was no injustice in this result, and as I said the scoreline could have been more emphatic from their perspective. They played very well, we played badly, especially by our own standards. And look, that can happen. Every team, even the best ones, will have its off days, and there’s no question it was one of those for Arsenal yesterday. We don’t need to get the knives out, but nor do we need to sugarcoat it. We were bad, and if there’s a lesson to be learned as the manager said, we need to learn it quickly. That said, with the Interlull upon us, we now have three weeks to stew over this result and performance before we can put it right, but a home game against Leeds when we return is a relatively friendly way for us to do that. There’s plenty for Arteta to think about in that time period though, and knowing this manager there’s no doubt he’ll do exactly that. Right, I’ll leave it there for now, but stand by for an Arsecast Extra which we are recording in a little while. We’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com, so fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out around lunchtime. Until then, have a good one. The post Brighton 3-0 Arsenal: Shoddy Gunners get what they deserve appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.