With around a day-and-a-half until our next game tomorrow night away to Brighton, there’s no such opportunity as we had last week with the North London Derby, where we had a week off to bask and enjoy all the #content as the victors. Instead, just 24 hours after I was penning some post-match thoughts on the nervy Chelsea game, we find ourselves looking ahead to what has really crept up on me as a super-tough away match against the Seagulls.
I don’t know why, but I feel like we have a rough record against them, but when you look at the recent results, [that doesn’t appear to be the case](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/brighton-amp-hove-albion/bilanzdetail/verein/1237/plus/0?gegner_id=11&saison_id=&wettbewerb_id=GB1&day=&heim_gast=heim&punkte=&datum_von=&datum_bis=). The draw last season is perhaps colouring my memory; a farcical Brighton penalty for a clash of heads that you have never seen since, and probably never will. That was one of the many draws that were the real death-knell in any hope of a title attempt, and with recent draws against Forest, Brentford and Wolves, we have to hope that tomorrow night isn’t more of the same stuff.
But as I mentioned, we actually have an okayish recent record against them. Two seasons back, we beat them 3-0 at the Amex. The season before that, it was the 4-2 on New Year’s Eve. The season before that was a frustrating 0-0 draw, but before that, we scraped a 1-0 win. So in recent times, it hasn’t been too bad there.
This season will be another really tough test, though. They were on a bit of a patchy run, but they’ve readdressed their form with back-to-back wins, and interestingly enough, the one against Forest was delivered with a lot of experienced players on the pitch. They played Milner, Welbeck, Gross and Dunk – all 34+ – and Huerzler did say afterwards that the experience of those players was what got them over the line. So it will be interesting to see what they do tomorrow. Can you send those players out just a few days after playing in this tough game?
I suspect not. Baleba, Minteh, March and Veltman were all rested for that one, which means – I suspect – that it was because they were being prepared for our visit tomorrow. Good players, Minteh in particular, are rapid players, so we will be up against a fresher Brighton side tomorrow.
There will be some similarity in the approach to what we’ve just faced against Chelsea, too. Chelsea is a possession-dominant side that likes to build up play; Brighton is arguably more adept at that, with some of the highest possession stats in the league, passing stats, and ball retention. This has been their DNA for the last few managers they’ve had, so I’m expecting them to be similar in style to that tomorrow, and Arteta hopefully has a plan for it. I’ll do more on Arsenal tomorrow when we know the team news, but I suspect there will be some rotation. Depending on what Arteta gives us as an update, it will be interesting to see who is rotated, because it sounds like there are question marks on Rice, plus I think I read somewhere that Zubi looked like he was limping at the end of the game. Let’s hope that’s just some spurious hearsay.
Brighton as a team doesn’t create tons of chances, sitting firmly mid-table for shots and shots on target, as well as xG. What they do really well – and are the best in the league – is the high press. They have more pressing sequences than any other team in the league, their starting distances for when they press are higher than anyone other than City and us (and we have that because we are a ball-dominant side), so we know what we’re going to get with some of those rotated players coming in tomorrow. What we will have to do is be accurate and quicker with the ball in transition. They played Everton a couple of weeks back and I was reading the match report. It finished 1-1, but Everton apparently had the better of the second half by being direct and moving the ball quickly in transition. You’d hope that Arteta is aware of that and is readying his players for that. Draw Brighton out, don’t make silly mistakes when under pressure, set traps, then go direct when needed.
Easier said than done, I know, but at least we have an idea of how Brighton might play. So hopefully the analysts at Arsenal are all over it.
Defensively, I’ve read some stuff suggesting Brighton has been a little shaky on that, but the numbers give a mixed picture this season. They’re fifth in the league for the most number of tackles made, along with other teams towards the bottom of the league, like the Scum and Wolves. They’re mid-table for interceptions, as well as being second-bottom for ground duels won. I wonder if this paints a picture of a team that can be got at defensively, or are they having to make a lot of last-ditch interventions? I hope so. But we do need to be mindful of those fast breaks – they’re third in the league behind Newcastle and Brentford for those.
So hopefully that paints a bit of a picture for you, based on a little bit of data I was looking at from Opta. We will need to ensure we don’t drop a ‘forced’ error clanger like we’ve been doing in 2026 a couple of times, but we also need to be ready to invite the press, before moving the ball back-to-front pretty rapidly. Then we need to rely on our attackers doing their jobs, which has been a question mark this season. As I said, I’ll do a bit more on Arsenal tomorrow and how I think we should line up, but as a bit of a sneak preview for tomorrow, I am thinking that we will need guys who can get in behind quickly if Brighton plays a high-pressing line. There could be some merit in the likes of Gyokeres and Martinelli – even if they have’t looked great together so far this season.
Catch you all tomorrow to expand on that a little.