Brighton 0-1 Arsenal: Saka’s goal makes it a big night in the title race

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction

8 games to go. 8 stomach-churning, heart-wrenching, arse-clenching games to go.

What a night this turned out to be. Hardly a classic in football terms, but if you’d asked me to check off a list, one that has no specific name, the events of yesterday evening would certainly have done that.

• Arsenal win
• Man City drop points
• Fabian Hurzeler so unhappy he lashes out
• Mikel Arteta bites back at an opposition manager’s guff

It was all in there. Arsenal were without William Saliba who picked up an ankle injury against Chelsea, so Christian Mosquera took his place. The only other change was Gabriel Martinelli on the left ahead of Leandro Trossard. Early on, David Raya played a terrible pass which left him in no man’s land, the Brighton player lobbed it over him, but setting the tone for a colossal defensive performance, Gabriel read the danger and headed the ball away before it could cross the line.

Just what you need to settle the nerves for a tricky away game. To be fair, we responded quite well. An Eberechi Eze flick sent Bukayo Saka in behind, I thought he might shoot but he looked for the pass to Martinelli at the back post, and either misread the run or the run wasn’t what he was expecting. Minutes later though, he was much more decisive.

Picking up a pass from Jurrien Timber, he came in off the touchline, decided to have a pop from the edge of the box, and a tiny deflection saw the ball hit the back of the net having gone through the goalkeeper’s legs. Perhaps a touch of good fortune, but also reward for making that space and taking a shot.

Mosquera then got booked for a nothing foul out on the touchline. Frustrating, given how early it was, but compounded by the fact a couple of Brighton players got away with the same foul and no card. It left the young Spaniard in a tricky position. At one point there was another light foul in midfield, but football’s most irritating man, the walking genital rash that is the Brighton manager, berated the fourth official as he felt it was a second yellow. It wasn’t, but Hurzeler is that kind of guy, so we shouldn’t expect any less. I get it, we all want to win, but if you constantly create your own injustice, it warps your personality.

That led to a confrontation on the sideline between himself and Arteta, the Arsenal boss clearly irritated, jabbing his finger towards his counterpart. The Brighton fans, fooled into thinking Arsenal’s ‘time-wasting’ was a real thing despite the fact their team has one of the lowest ball-in-play times in the Premier League this season, heckled and whistled every time we had a throw in. At one point, Hurzeler started chirping away at Piero Hincapie as he was about to take a throw, prompting the Ecuadorian to laugh at him, then tell him ‘Shhh’ before chucking it to Gabriel.

To be fair, I thought Brighton were the better side in the first half, but this was low quality stuff. Arsenal were awful, so better is relative. It’s a bit like saying I’m faster than an 83 year old who has just had a hip replacement. It’s true, but only just. They had more of the ball, but didn’t really do much with it. We did even less with even less of the ball. Perhaps we were just more efficient in that sense.

In the second half, when it was more of the same, Arteta made changes, putting on Kai Havertz and Trossard for Viktor Gyokeres and Martinelli. The kindest thing I can do this morning is say nothing about their individual performances (player ratings are here anyway), and point to the fact that the German in particular made a difference. We immediately had more presence up front, although we still weren’t particularly effective.

Mosquera got away with a moment when Yankuba Minteh skinned him and he went to ground as the Brighton man drove into the box. Another player might have taken a tumble, but he stayed upright and a dangerous low cross deflected off Trossard and behind. Sensibly, and perhaps just a little late, Mosquera was replaced with Riccardo Calafiori coming on in his place. It meant a defensive reshuffle with Hincapie moving to centre-half.

They brought Danny Welbeck on, adding to the fear I was experiencing. The old ‘former player comes back to haunt you’ narrative was going off in my brain. Thankfully, I think that was the only time I saw him. Gabriel and Hincapie were outstanding at the back, not just heading everything away, but loafing it like that bloke loafed Jamiroquai after he accused him of touching his motor car. There was real intent in every header.

We had a couple of chances, Havertz was put through by Rice but blocked as he shot, and he then had a shot saved at the near post. And if Brighton fans want to moan about something worthwhile, perhaps they should pay attention to the triple sub Hurzeler made with about 20 minutes to go which basically rendered them impotent. It wasn’t as if they were making loads of chances before that, but after it they had nothing but Hail Mary crosses which the two central defenders dealt with impeccably.

7 minutes off added time, crawled by, and coincidentally, there were 7 minutes of added time at the Etihad where, after going ahead twice, Man City were being held by Nottingham Forest. I tried not to pay attention to that, I had enough terror was it was, and I don’t think my heart would have withstood that Murillo moment when he cleared what would have been a winning goal off the line. Brighton continued to huff and puff, but with Gabriel in full Gandalf ‘You shall not pass’ mode, the full-time whistle finally went, the three points were ours, and to top it all off, City ended up drawing. You could barely ask for more.

Except, we got more. In his post-game press conference, Hurzeler was in full deflection mode, bitching and moaning about Arsenal, saying:

At the moment I have the feeling they are doing their own rules. I ask one question. Did you see in a Premier League game a goalkeeper going down three times? No?

They just can do what they want.

Which is, of course, bullshit, and sour grapes of the highest order. Even if the goalkeeper goes down, the referee has this mechanism to counter that, it’s called ‘added time’, and there were 7 extra minutes for his team not to score in. And if he’s so concerned about the game being delayed, perhaps he might tell his own players to get out of our way when we’re taking free kicks instead of standing in front of the ball. Ultimately, this is bog-standard stuff from a manager who has lost a game, and lost too many games this season already, focusing on some perceived injustice rather than the failings of his own team and his tactics/decisions. Their fans might cry about Arsenal but the bigger issue is closer to home.

What made it even better was the fact that when those comments were relayed to Mikel Arteta, he reacted. He almost never does that, because he doesn’t want to get embroiled in controversy. He always plays it with a straight bat, but this time, his clear dislike of Hurzeler came to the fore.

“What a surprise!”, he said sarcastically, and when asked by James Benge if he’d like to expand, continued:

“No. You just go back to the previous games and you’ll find a lot of comments like this always.”

My favourite bit though was when he was asked if he cares what other managers say:

“Care? Depends on the manager. And the comments, and the purpose of them.”

I suspect very strongly that in this instance he does not care. There’s obviously previous, after Hurzeler’s rank hypocrisy last season when his own player kicking the ball 40 yards down the pitch was apparently not worthy of a yellow card in his mind, whereas Rice tapping the ball 2 inches then getting vigorously booted by a Brighton player is, somehow, enough to reduce a team to ten men. I love it when Arsenal win, it’s the best thing in football, but when we do it and it really annoys an irritating little prick like this, it’s even better. Anyway, he is now irrelevant to us this season, but we should be magnanimous enough to to say thanks for the 6 points, and for the 5 you’ve taken off City. Dickhead.

Overall, this was not a fun experience while it was happening, but that’s kinda how it’s gonna be unless we find a way to score goals in games. As I said after Chelsea though, the points matter much more than performance, and I think Arteta was right to commend his team’s desire to win after the final whistle. Sometimes that’s evident in how you attack, sometimes in how you defend, and last night was obviously the latter.

Fine margins, yes, but a 1-0 win gives you the same three points as a 5-0 win. There’s just less stress with the latter. Which I’m all for, by the way, and if Arsenal could oblige in that regard I’d be very grateful, but this was a tricky away day, we’ve come back home with the maximum, and the City result could make this an absolutely pivotal night in the title race.

Right, I’m gonna leave it there for now, but we’ll have an Arsecast for you a bit later on, so stand-by for that. Until then, have a good one. Unless you’re a German football manager called Fabian.

I hope you step on some upturned Lego.

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