Photo from Freepik.
Morning all.
Two years ago Brighton turned up at the Emirates Stadium to outplay and outcompete what was at the time a decent Arsenal team, knocking the Gunners out of the League Cup in the process. Here we were again.
Brighton are always a good and dangerous side who have enjoyed a lot of success at the Emirates in recent times and although this Arsenal team are a lot better than many the Seagulls have faced in that time, it was still a game that could go either way because of both managers’ rotation of players.
Before the game Arteta could have gone either full strength or fully rotated or mix and match and he surprised me by going fully rotated. Now although Mikel would want to keep the winning run going and keep up the clean sheets he also knew he had a few more senior injuries to contend with and tired legs to rest with three more away games to face before the next international break, so he had to use his resources intelligently – and that’s exactly what he did by making 10 changes from Sunday. In came Hincapie for his full debut, Max Dowman for his full debut and Andre Harriman Annous for his actual debut.
The opening exchanges were not what we are use to and it was quite open, a bit too open for me with a lot of wide open space especially in the Arsenal midfield in front of our back four. Nordgaard had a big job and he was taking his time to adjust with Myles tucking in to help. Mikel Merino, sporting the captains armband, was pushed forward to help the energetic and enthusiastic Harriman Annous with Eze and Dowman on the flanks, Nwaneri was in the Odegaard role.
From Sky Sports
It was hard going at times and Brighton will look back on two early chances which with more composure, would have seen them cruising but Kepa saved the first and the other was struck wide. From then on, Kepa had a faultless game making all the right decisions, saving everything which came his way, looking secure and confident.
In front of him Mosquera had a great game alongside the solid Hincapie, Ben White worked tirelessly and Myles was in general solid. During the early exchanges Nwaneri did well to set up Merino but his shot cleared the bar, Arsenal actually didn’t have a shot on target until the 2nd half. It pretty much went end to end with Brighton having far more efforts on goal, they’ll reflect on that because they could and probably should have been leading at half time.
Harriman Annous was having an impressive debut and was sprinting around Martinelli style. I’d seen this kid in the U21’s but he looked very useful and I reckon that Arteta has probably discovered someone who can come off of the bench and cause a lot of problems later on in this long season. Brighton had a corner in the 40th minute and a great chance was headed wide and so we went in for our oranges at 0-0.
Arteta didn’t make any personnel changes but I felt we came out more organised and more aggressive, Harriman Annous almost set up Eze and then Arsenal scored. On 57 minutes Eze made some space and put in Merino whose smart flick with his heel banjaxed the Brighton defence and Myles, the recipient of the flick, passed to his buddy Ethan whose low cross shot flew past the Brighton keeper.
Brighton seemed to lose some confidence as Arsenal got stronger. Nordgaard was now looking secure whilst both Eze and Nwaneri were getting far more involved. With a 1-0 lead and something to defend Arteta decided to batten down the hatches on 70 minutes. On came Gabriel (Hincapie), Timber (White) and Saka (Dowman) and from then on it was game over as Arsenal took full control and Brighton were squeezed out of the game.
A couple of corners and the King of Brazil was causing all kinds of chaos as Merino was very unlucky not to score with a header. Brighton were still having a go but the door to Kepa’s goal had been slammed shut. Then on 76 minutes Timber got the ball and surged past a couple of Brighton players and into their half, his weighted pass fell beautifully for AHA and I was longing for him to score but the keeper saved it only for Saka to score with the follow up – job done.
Immediately afterwards Rice came on for AHA who got a big hug from Arteta’s he left the pitch. Trossard came on for Eze shortly afterwards and during added time hit the Brighton post with the keeper well beaten and that my friends was that…
Dowman had a fine game, almost won a penalty but looked top class. A very enjoyable evening had by all Gooners and – we march on…
In other results, Liverpool were knocked out as were Tottenham but there were still some tricky opponents left in the competition. We really needed a home tie in the draw which took place last night and we got it, against Crystal Palace which will be very tough.
Arteta will have to play a much stronger team in that if he wants to progress because Palace will go full strength.
By Kev.