Arsenal reclaimed their spot atop the Premier League table with a 2-1 win over Brighton at the Emirates. The Gunners had to work hard, harder than they reasonably should have to preserve the three points, but three points are three points. As has become a theme lately, the match felt closer and worse than it actually was. Arsenal were comfortably the better of the two teams and it should have been a lopsided victory.
Since the start of December, Arsenal have scored 5 goals (and three own goals which
don’t count towards the xG total) from 9.62 xG in the Premier League. Today, it was 2 from 2.8 xG and 1 against from 0.8. At some point, the matches should start to look more as expected and feel less nervy down the stretch. My gut is telling me Arsenal, who have taken 12 of 15 points on offer this month, are on the brink of a run like two years ago where they were absolutely smashing teams.
Today, it felt like Arsenal were hanging on at the end more than you’d like to see / feel. There are things that Mikel Arteta could do to ease that. To be fair, bringing on Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli did just that. The Brazilian attackers helped the Gunners wrest control of the match back after a spell on the back foot and kill it off. I think Arteta could be a bit more proactive with changes like that. Perhaps if he went to the bench a bit sooner, he’d avoid (or at least cut down) the time spent forced to sit deep.
But for a tremendous, save of the season candidate stop from David Raya, Brighton would have equalized out of nowhere. Raya flung himself to his right and got his fingertips to a curling, dipping shot from Yankuba Minteh to put it over the bar. Piero Hincapie, who otherwise had an excellent game, fell asleep for just long enough for the winger to dart behind him across the box.
Brighton’s first goal was as much as fluke as anything else. A deflected shot from distance went straight to a blue and white shirt. The shot off the post ricocheted directly into the path of Diego Gomez. The Arsenal defenders could have been quicker to react but also the ball, on two occasions, could have gone anywhere other than directly to an attacker.
You can really only smile and shake your head. Arsenal gave up two decent chances in the game. They were David Raya’s fingertips away from conceding on both of them. I guess the flip side is they’re playing well enough to only allow a smattering of chances. It’s all about how you slice it. It is incredibly impressive that Arsenal, with Jurrien Timber out, Riccardo Calafiori forced out by an injury in warmups, the backup LCB playing, and Declan Rice forced to right back, are STILL that good defensively.
I don’t think enough is being made of Arsenal’s ability to chop and change the lineup, as forced by injuries right now, and still be this good. It’s really, really impressive. Today, the midfield and defense were disrupted and the Gunners kept ticking over, hardly missing a beat. Arsenal were dominant in the first half. The shot attempts were 15-0. At some point, the nearly 2 xG generated in the first half is going to result in more than one on the scoreboard. If Arsenal keep playing like this, the goals will come.
Arsenal’s second goal was an own goal from a corner. Georginio Rutter tried to cut the service out at the near post, but it went off the top of his head as if he’d intentionally flicked it goalwards. When you’re as good as the Gunners from set pieces, defenders feel extra pressure to make things happen, which forces mistakes. Maybe Rutter doesn’t try a difficult clearance if the ball isn’t whipped in from Declan Rice towards an attack that has (still) scored the most goals from set pieces in the Premier League.
Martin Ødegaard is a big part of why Arsenal are playing so well. He’s a transformative player for the attack when he’s fit and firing. And if he finds the scoring form he showed from ‘22 to ‘24, watch out. His goal today reminded me very much of several of those goals from a few seasons ago. He had time and space on the edge of the box because Declan Rice pulled a defender, Viktor Gyokeres was occupying space and defenders in the middle, and Brighton had Bukayo Saka to worry about, too. Ødegaard set up as if he was shooting for the far post then ripped a low shot to the near post.
Bukayo Saka was unplayable today. He didn’t have his best shooting boots with him, but most of the good things Arsenal did flowed through him (and MØ). Gyokeres put in an encouraging performance. He was more able to use his size and strength to bully defenders and worked himself into excellent positions. As with Arsenal as a whole, you get the feeling the goals are coming. Gabriel Jesus was really good off the bench, as he has been since returning from his ACL tear.
Gabriel Martinelli put the ball over the bar from close range late in the match to miss making it 3-1. Gabriel Jesus was too slow to pull the trigger when space looked to have opened up for him. Bukayo Saka was run down on a breakaway late on. The Gunners had shots blocked throughout the match. The chances were there to make this a much more comfortable win. At some point, Arsenal will start converting.
Arsenal had two penalty shouts not given, one half-hearted on Gyokeres (although it looked more a foul on the replay than in live action) and one a bit more convincing on Gabriel Jesus late in the match. Both of them were shoves in the back in the “you’ve seen those given” category. I think I would have lost my mind if Brighton had scored at the death, given they’d won possession to get the ball up the pitch from a called shove in the back on an aerial ball that went against Arsenal.
None of those moments were missed calls, per se. However, I think not sending Bart Verbruggen off for his challenge on Viktor Gyokeres towards the end of the first half was a mistake. The striker beat the keeper to the ball and touched it around him. Without the foul, Gyokeres would have been shooting at an empty net, albeit from a bit of an angle. The defender was not getting back to cover, although I can see how the referee and VAR might have (wrongly) thought he was in a position to do so. The ball only looked like it was running away because the Brighton keeper had taken out the Arsenal attacker. And the foul itself was late and quite hard.
I’ll grant that none of the elements of the play, on their own, were likely enough to merit a red. You could argue DOGSO. You could argue that the physicality of the tackle itself was a red, both for how late it was and how hard it was. Why is a challenge, that is a yellow card for two or three different reasons, just a yellow card because you did all those things at the same time?
And let’s stop treating goalkeepers differently from other players, particularly when they’re outside of the penalty area. In fact, if that’s a Brighton defender making that tackle to prevent Gyokeres going 1-v-1 with the keeper, it’s probably more likely given as a red card. So it makes very little sense to treat it less harshly when the keeper himself makes the challenge, preventing a chance at an empty net with a defender, who may not get there, racing back to cover.
At the end of the day, it didn’t end up mattering. That’s what happens when Arsenal score multiple goals in a match — it makes any individual mistake and moment, from referee or player, less important to the result. To be crystal clear, Arsenal were the better team, by far, today. They did more than enough to earn the points and they got them. The Gunners have taken 12 points from 15 on offer in December, deploying a different back four in each match (it’s actually 8 different combinations in their last 8). Today’s win is +2 points over last year’s results, and Arsenal have a chance to pick up another two against Aston Villa on Tuesday to close out 2025.
