LONDON—There were many things Mikel Arteta stewed on over the three weeks since Arsenal’s humbling 3–0 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion.
The quality of Brighton’s press, the flaws of his own players in possession and quite how confronting Fabian Hürzeler now looks without his toupée all offered food for thought. But it was the desperately unforgiving margins of the Premier League which stuck in his stomach. Arteta learned “how thin the line is, from being exceptional to becoming very average.”
