Arsenal will try to respond to losing their place atop the table on Sunday when they host Brighton and Hove Albion less than 72 hours after one of the visitors’ best nights in club history.
Arsenal (11-2-3, 36 points) were pegged back early and then failed to find an equalizer in their 1-0 loss last Saturday at in-form Aston Villa.
That loss dropped the Gunners behind Liverpool, who earned a dramatic victory at Crystal Palace the following day.
But for Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, even if the outcome that helped Villa climb into third was discouraging, the quality of the performance wasn’t.
“We love winning, and the team is desperate to do anything it takes to win games,” Arteta said on Friday. “We showed that against Aston Villa when, in my opinion, we were the better team and should’ve won the game. We will try again against Brighton, who will make life very difficult for us for sure.”
Arteta’s squad followed with a largely elementary 1-1 draw against PSV Eindhoven in midweek to close the UEFA Champions League group stage, with passage to the knockout phase already secure. The impact from that contest should be minimal, with several players rested, including striking duo Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka.
The same can’t be said for eighth-place Brighton (7-4-5, 26 points), which secured a first-place finish in its Europa League group — and direct qualification to the round of 16 — with a dramatic late 1-0 victory over Marseille on Thursday.
The Seagulls were the better side for most of the encounter but had to wait until Joao Pedro’s 88th-minute strike to seal all three points.
For a club in its first-ever continental competition following last year’s sixth-place finish, it’s hard not to imagine the effort will have an impact on how Brighton manager Roberto De Zerbi approaches Sunday’s trip to London.
“I lost my voice,” he said postgame. “I lost everything because it was an amazing game. We played amazing football. We deserved to reach the top of the table. We deserved to win. We could have scored more goals, but we are very happy. We are very proud for the club, for Brighton, for our fans, for our players. For the people who work inside of the club.”
De Zerbi will have a few fresh reinforcements to call on, most notably club scoring leader Evan Ferguson, who came off the bench in the 64th minute of Thursday’s win.
–Field Level Media