Arsenal respond well to pressure from Manchester City by climbing to the summit of the Premier League table following their 2-1 win over Brighton & Hove Albion at the Emirates Stadium. The win extends their perfect home league run to six games.
Just as they had done in the Carabao Cup win over Crystal Palace, Mikel Arteta’s team went straight on the front foot at the start of the game. The only problem for them was that they did not get the goal until just after the twenty minutes had elapsed, after goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen had found it very difficult to get the ball away from his own area after which Declan Rice had competed for the ball and directed it into Saka’s path. The left winger passed to Ødegaard, who soon fired off a ball on the opposite goal, an attempt that ended in a goal from the Norwegian.
The Gunners were clearly on top for most of the opening 45, and it was unlucky that a further goal had not been added before they went in for the break. It was a quick goal after the resumption; however, it wasn’t exactly in the manner the visitors had planned, as a mere accident saw Georginio Rutter, putting a near-post corner towards goal from Rice, completely unaware, handling the ball with his head into the net.
From the outside, it looked as if the Londoners were on the point of winning fairly comfortably, but when Diego Gómez’s goal for the Seagulls came after Yasin Ayari had already hit the post, Arsenal had to rally defensively. Brighton were making noises of the equaliser, and David Raya had just managed to repel a shot from Yankuba Minteh here on his 150th Premier League match.
In the end, Brighton ran out of time, as Arsenal was able to keep the score at 2-2 and, thus, get their hands on another narrow, yet very significant comparably Sheffield United game triple point; a victory that goes some way to cementing their status as favourites as well as enabling them to check on City once more while being distinctly out of reach.
