Champions League football had been firmly in Arsenal’s grasp but they face an almighty battle to secure it now. The league table shows they remain well in the fight but, should they tail off, it will not be hard to identify the week when things slipped away.
While this defeat did not outwardly match Monday’s reverse at Crystal Palace for ignominy, it was just as bad. They only got going in the final 10 minutes and could not feel surprised when it was too late to turn things around; Mikel Arteta may have to field some blame himself for responding to unwelcome absences with a team selection that never looked balanced.
The nagging sense was always that two key injuries would critically test an Arsenal squad that was thinned, by choice, in January. Kieran Tierney will miss the rest of the season and Thomas Partey may well do; their absences were sorely felt and it did not seem to help, almost from the moment a ball had been kicked, that Arteta chose Granit Xhaka to deputise for the former.
It meant Arsenal’s first-choice midfield pivot had been completely dismantled and ensured, crucially as things turned out, that the left-back role was not occupied by a specialist.
Brighton took full advantage. As much as this was a setback for Arteta it represented a triumph for Graham Potter, whose team had scored once in their previous seven games but made light of that with two outstanding goals.
Enock Mwepu created the first for Leandro Trossard and struck the second sweetly; the Zambian was the best player on the pitch, leading a dominant midfield three in which Yves Bissouma and the young league debutant Moisés Caicedo also shone. There was little hard work for Robert Sánchez until, having been beaten by Martin Ødegaard’s deflected shot, he made a spectacular save from Eddie Nketiah at the very end. Arsenal would not have deserved parity and Arteta knew it.
“The first half was really poor, again,” he said. “The reaction we wanted to show and everything we talked about, we didn’t make it happen on the pitch. We were sloppy with the ball, we were second best again in a lot of situations, we didn’t show any purpose or build any momentum.”
Arsenal tend to start at a rattling tempo here but, in an almost eventless opening 20 minutes, the warning signs were obvious. Arteta commented afterwards that his side had “created a cold atmosphere that we were uncomfortable with”, and they had done little to warm anybody up before Trossard’s opener. It was created when an optimistic first-time swipe from Lewis Dunk sent Mwepu striding into space down the right. He showed the presence of mind to cut it back for the onrushing Trossard to sweep confidently beyond Aaron Ramsdale and, despite Brighton’s well-documented drought, nobody could feel too surprised.
“We’ve scored a goal,” sang the away fans. Perhaps they would not have if Nuno Tavares, a specialist left-back, had been selected there ahead of Xhaka but he was the primary scapegoat for the debacle at Selhurst Park.
Xhaka was nowhere as Mwepu ate up ground and did not have the recovery speed to influence matters, either.
It appeared that Arsenal had got away with it when, right on half-time, Gabriel Martinelli leapt to convert Gabriel Magalhães’ header across the six-yard box. After a four-minute delay, VAR decided he had been offside; the decision was marginal and correct, although in the days before technology’s smothering spread nobody would have especially queried the goal’s legitimacy. “If it’s taking too long and if there’s going to be any doubt there then it’s going to be a goal: that wasn’t the case,” Arteta said, but he sounded regretful rather than aggrieved.
There was plenty for him to rue when, after spluttering attempts to mount a comeback, Arsenal were again undone beautifully midway through the second half. Brighton carved an opening when Trossard backheeled cutely into the path of Caicedo, who contrived a perceptive chip to the edge of the area.
Mwepu was waiting and it required tremendous technique, on the bounce, to produce a finish with the required power and control to beat Ramsdale.
Alexandre Lacazette and Nketiah both hit the bar before Ødegaard’s stroke of long-range fortune, which was rendered irrelevant by Sánchez’s acrobatics. “A good performance and an even better result,” Potter said. “We’ve had a tough time.”
Arsenal, meanwhile, must pray this is as onerous as it gets.
