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Slightly disjointed Arsenal ultimately get the job done against Brighton

Suburban Gooners Logo Suburban Gooners Logo On paper it looks like a perfunctory 2-0 win for Arsenal and given that we’ve been getting into the habit of those kinds of wins, you’d be excused for not thinking that if you didn’t watch the 2-0 home win against Brighton in the League Cup. But the reality of the performance yesterday was that it was anything but a standard comfortable 2-0 home victory. Brighton can probably consider themselves unlucky not to be that name in the hat and still in the competition.

Both Arteta and Hurzler decided to make numerous changes to what you’d consider the first XI for both teams, with Arteta possibly going a little harder with his than the Brighton manager. In fact, other than Eze, the whole team was replaced last night. Kepa, White, Mosquera, Hincapie, MLS, Norgaard, Merino, Nwaneri and Dowman can all be considered the first team ‘understudies’ at Arsenal, with Harriman-Annous getting the nod to start in what must have been an amazing evening for him. This wasn’t even dead minutes either; he played 77 minutes of the 90 and I have to say I thought he acquitted himself rather well. He pressed, he harried, he even had an impact on one of the goals and although I’m sure he’d have loved to have been the one to slide the ball under Steele rather than have the ‘keeper save it and Saka to finish off the game, he can still be pleased with a very good night’s work and Arteta gave him a big hug when he came off. Lovely stuff.

I’m not much of an under-21 or under-18 watcher, so that probably informed me of how the side lined up, but I was really surprised we did line up in the way we did. Looking at the teamsheet I would have thought it would be Eze in the left eight, Merino up top and Harriman-Annous on the left wing. That’s often where young debutants are asked to make their debut rather than battling it out with Premier League central defenders at the tip of the attacking Arsenal spear, but within a few minutes you could see that it was Eze wide left, Harriman-Annous up top, Merino in midfield. Perhaps in hindsight that makes sense; two creative eights doesn’t quite feel like Arteta’s thing and it was important to give Nwaneri some game time to keep him ticking over.

Ethan had a decent game, tipped off by a well-taken goal (tip of the cap to Merino’s back heel to set MLS in who played the ball to Nwaneri for his goal – now that’s what I call a pre assist!), but he wasn’t at his sparkling best I thought. But I think that is the case for most of the team yesterday. It did feel a little disjointed to what we’re used to; that’s understandable to be fair, because when you make that many changes, there aren’t those ol’ famous Per Mertesacker automism s that he spoke of all those years ago. Connections aren’t forged through multiple matches playing together, muscle memory isn’t formed with teammates and the ‘pods’ of players who usually interchange well with each other just aren’t there.

An example of that can probably be seen in a couple of the counter-attack breakaway opportunities Brighton had in the first half, one of which came from our corner and ended up with their number nine through on goal, only to put it wide. It was an eyebrow-raiser amongst Arsenal fans and I think it’s fair to say we’d gotten quite happy and comfortable with giving away basically zero chances in games, so this was a deviation from the recent script that we did not like – at all.

But Brighton should have been ahead. There was another chance which forced a save from Kepa and a header that van Hecke chance that just went wide from a corner really should have resulted in a goal. It was an uncharacteristic performance from The Arsenal this season, but then again we had changed a lot of the characters in the team, so I think most of us in the ground recognised it.

That doesn’t give the players a pass though and to their credit, in the second half, I thought we were much better. We spent more time in their half than ours and we didn’t seem as open as we were in the first. This is where Arteta clearly earns his onions, because he changed something that is difficult to see when in the ground and as low as I am in Block Five to the pitch, but clearly there was a tactical tweak that allowed us to have more dominance and get the two goals needed to get us through to the next round. I can say this with a degree of comfort because although Arteta brought on some of the big guns on 70 minutes (Timber, Saka and Gabriel), we were already up at that stage, so it wasn’t as if he’d just shouted at them old-school style and just told them all to “get into em” or anything. We changed our movements, the intensity of the passing and we certainly weren’t as open at the back as I’ve already mentioned. But with those additional first teamers on we began to take more control and when Saka scored the second of the night on 76 minutes, you knew it was pretty much done.

I’m trying to rack my brains as to any other big moments in the game, but I can’t think of any, so will wrap up this post match review by talking about individuals. I thought Kepa didn’t really put a foot wrong and for him it will have been the perfect evening: clean sheet, but wasn’t a spectator, so he was allowed to show his capabilities in goal. I thought Hincapie looked good and I love his tenacity; he snaps into tackles and much like Arteta said “the fans will love him” I think we got a glimpse of that last night. Mosquera had one or two slightly wobbly moments I thought, but he managed to overcome them almost immediately. The rest is pretty much it. Dowman made his first start in competitive competition and I thought he had some of the Brighton players dancing to his tune. When they can’t tackle him, they kick him, which is something he is learning.

And this will have been good minutes for a lot of those rotational players. It will have been the perfect night’s work and there are plenty of those Arsenal first teamers who got much needed rest ahead of a tricky game against Burnley on Saturday. It’s onwards in the cup – a home tie to Crystal Palace who vanquished Liverpool last night – and if we overcome that then we’re back in the semi’s again.

Back tomorrow as we start to look ahead to Burnley. See you then.

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Gooner born in 1982 from Harlow, Essex, now living in Uxbridge. I say what I see - frequently wrong, but hey, it's just an opinion piece, right? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.