Albion were too good for Arsenal at the Amex (Image: Liz Finlayson)
Albion were too good for Arsenal at the Amex (Image: Liz Finlayson)
Mikel Arteta praised Albion as the better team from the start at the Amex.
The Arsenal boss saw his side swept aside 3-0 to end their perfect start to the Premier League campaign.
Albion closed to within two points of their visitors in the early table with goals from Pascal Gross, Charalampos Kotoulas and Chema Andres.
But Arteta revealed he could feel the difference well before Gross opened the scoring.
He said: “I am extremely disappointed. Brighton deserved it, they were the better team.
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“And from our side there are certain basics that you need to accomplish in football, especially in the Premier League, that we were very far from.
“In the first duel, the second ball, that put the game, especially how direct they were, in a really difficult place for us.
“On top of that, when we did regain the ball, especially in our own half, the amount of technical errors that we did, we didn’t respect any principle of play and that put us always on the back foot, so it was very difficult to control the game.
“It’s a big lesson for us all to understand what it takes to win at this level.”
Prior to Saturday’s fixture, Arsenal had conceded just once in the league so far – to ex-Seagulls striker Joao Pedro for Chelsea.
Mikel Arteta is not happy as the match slips away (Image: Liz Finlayson)
But their response to that was emphatic as they won 2-1.
The last time the Gunners shipped three in a game was in a 4-3 win at Luton nearly three years ago, while their last three-goal defeat came, coincidentally, against Albion in Arsenal’s penultimate home game of the 2022-23 season.
Arteta continued: “From the first throw-in you could sense it, it was so clear. We put ourselves in trouble one time, two times, three times and we needed to get out of it much quicker than that.
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“Credit to them. They overcame us and they had another edge, another bite, and that’s something that at this level it’s extremely important to respect and to understand.
“That’s not going to take away what the boys have done in the last six or seven weeks since coming back from the World Cup, because with 18 players coming back and how we’ve competed and the amount of games we’ve won has been remarkable.”