Arsenal had not lost a Premier League match since April. Nine consecutive league victories had carried them to the title at the end of last season and established them as the team to beat in the early weeks of this one. On Saturday, on the south coast, the team to beat were beaten thoroughly, going down 3-0 to Brighton — their first defeat by a three-goal margin in more than three years. The champions, normally so resilient, fell apart against the Seagulls’ press.
The most effective element of Brighton’s performance was how relentlessly they pressed Arsenal during spells of settled possession. Fabian Hürzeler’s side still had pressing triggers that sent them high up the pitch at specific moments, but they also recognised the need to stop the champions reaching the edge of the box. Brighton were in Arsenal’s faces for most of the match. Defensive midfielder Chema Andrés pushed up onto Martin Ødegaard whenever he could, shifting Brighton into a man-to-man shape out of possession and limiting the Norwegian whenever he dropped deep. With a four-on-four in build-out, Arsenal were not sharp enough on the ball to play around the press, forcing David Raya to go long more often than he would have liked. Brighton could then turn the ball over and attack at speed in the other direction.
That made the match a transition-heavy affair, which suited Brighton’s attacking players. Charalampos Kostoulas was an all-round threat as the focal point, while Pascal Gross, Maxim De Cuyper and Diego Gómez were all impactful in open space. Hürzeler’s approach never allowed the game state to swing in Arsenal’s favour.
Whether that formula can be replicated is another matter. Brighton are a physical force of nature: of the four players who covered the most distance on Saturday, three were Brighton players, and it is those legs and lungs that allow them to press so hard for so long. No Premier League team is averaging more high turnovers per 90 minutes this season. Not every side can do what Brighton do. There was also an old-school quality to the way they disrupted Arsenal, as Hürzeler explained when describing the instructions he gave his players. “We wanted to win the small battles first,” he said. “Win the first header, win the first tackle, win the first throw-in, win the first corner.”
Arsenal supporters, though, probably should not be panicking. There were mitigating factors behind the underperformance. The trip to Brighton was their fourth away game in just 10 days, and the team’s general lethargy reflected that schedule. Several of Arsenal’s best players, among them Ødegaard, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka, were denied a pre-season because of their extended involvement at the World Cup. Two of Brighton’s three goals also came from low-xG shots from outside the box; Arsenal were guilty of not closing the shooter down quickly enough, but on another day Gross and Kostoulas would have shot over the bar rather than into the top corner. Brighton’s three goals came from a total xG of just 1.31, less than Arsenal’s 1.63.
Arsenal are still without the injured William Saliba, whose presence alongside Gabriel Magalhaes would surely have steadied their defensive line, and without Ben White in the lineup they lacked the chemistry down the right wing that has been such a feature of their early-season success. Saka was a non-factor. Mikel Arteta, who admitted Brighton deserved to win, need not panic: Manchester City may now be top of the table, but Arsenal are two points better off than they were at the same stage of last season, when they went on to win the title for the first time since the Arsène Wenger era. Until Saturday, they had won seven out of seven in all competitions this season.
Even so, the tactical analysts and data crunchers employed by Arsenal’s rivals will have watched Brighton’s 3-0 win more than a few times by the time club football resumes.