Arsenal travel to Brighton for another tricky away day to open the Premier League season. At some point these tetchy fixtures will ease up, right? No matter for Mikel Arteta and the lads, you’d expect them to put in a good performance in the last match before an extended international break.
The Seagulls always seem to play well against the Gunners. Fabian Hurzeler’s side should be riding high off the momentum of coming from 2-0 down to beat Manchester United at Old Trafford, something that no side had
managed in something like 50 years. The German manager played a pantomime villain last season, complaining about Arsenal’s “dark arts” to whip his home crowd into a frenzy before the two clubs met at the Amex. I’m certain his petulant comments are still bulletin board material in the Arsenal changing room.
Brighton’s attack has been humming along to some impressive totals over four matches — 13 goals (1st), 10.18 xG (1st), 24 shots on target (1st), 78 shots (2nd), and 16.67% shot conversion. When you dig a bit deeper, the stats become a bit less impressive. Controlling for game state, they drop back into the middle of the pack. They’ve also played against 10-men for portions of two of their four matches. They drew Leeds and lost to Chelsea.
Takeaway: Brighton are a solid side that have run it up in favorable situations, are probably over-performing a little bit, but will still test Arsenal, particularly at their own ground.
Arsenal are also flying high to start the season. As always, the defense is leading the way. The Gunners have allowed the fewest shots on target and have the lowest expected goals against. The attack has been pretty good, helped by Martin Ødegaard’s brilliant start to the season. Arsenal have been a bit wasteful with chances but when you’re creating a fair few each match, you give yourself a bit of wiggle room. It feels as if Bukayo Saka hasn’t been at his best, which is a bit odd to say about a player with three goals from four matches. He’s getting plenty of chances, leads Arsenal in shots (13), but has missed a couple gilt-edged opportunities to find the back of the net. If he turns that around, someone will get battered.
Jurrien Timber returns to the starting lineup for Arsenal, which is excellent news because Ben White and Cristhian Mosquera are both still out of action. William Saliba is out for at least several more weeks.
Brighton have a slew of injuries to contend with. Kaorou Mitoma, Jack Hinshelwood, Mats Wieffer, Femi Azeez, Michael Svoboda, and Zadok Yohanna all have minor bumps and bruises that will keep them out short term. Stefanos Tzimas, Yankuba Minteh, and Evan Ferguson are all out longer term.
Arsenal – Raya, Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Bruno, Ødegaard, Tzolis, Saka, Havertz
Brighton – Verbruggen, Struijk, Gross, Chema, Kostoulas, Boscagli, Kadioglu, Gomez, Ayari, de Cuyper, Vuskovic
WHO: Arsenal at Brighton & Hove Albion
WHAT: Premier League match day 5
WHEN: Saturday, September 19th, 10:00am EST/7:00am PST/3:00pm GMT
WHERE: Amex Stadium, Brighton & Hove
HOW TO WATCH: Broadcast on The USA Network. Streaming on the Peacock and Amazon Prime apps.
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