Not all Bright On the night

I've never been a fan of going to the seaside in the Autumn. It's wet. It's miserable, It's just very far from enjoyable. And so it proved for Arsenal on Saturday evening.

Riding the crest of a mini wave following three straight wins, including a derby win last week, I had high hopes going in to the game against Brighton. Even more so when it was confirmed that the home side would be without midfield lynchpin Yves Bissouma. In my preview I noted that the midfield battle would be key and that the presence or otherwise would go some way to dictating how that would go. As it turned out, \I couldn't have been more wrong.

In the driving wind and rain, we never really got a grip of the game, as Brighton dominated us pretty much from start to finish. I say dominated, of the 21 efforts the hosts mustered, only 2 of them stung the palms of Aaron Ramsdale, but that just proves that stats don't really tell you the whole story. It was pretty much 90 minutes of concerted pressure.

It looked evident to me that we missed Granit Xhaka in midfield. His partnership with Thomas Partey is clearly a lot stronger than we give it credit for, as the Ghanaian clearly struggled on Saturday. Albert Lokonga didn't really do too much to impress coming in, although this will have been a great learning experience for him, hopefully one that he takes much from as we will likely need to rely on him a lot more in the coming months.

Now, I like to think of myself as something of a positive Arsenal fan, but also one who looks at things with a sense of realism and objectivity. So where half of the fan base is seemingly back on the #ArtetaOut bandwagon after one poor performance, I'm looking at this a bit differently. 12 months ago, I have no doubt we lose that game. But this weekend, we stood up to the test, faced Brighton down and came away with a point that we scarcely deserved. 

Ramsdale, Gabriel and Ben White, returning to Brighton for the first time, All come out of the game with credit, although in Gabriel's case, coming out of it with less teeth. All three standing up to the aerial bombardment they faced, barely giving Maupay a sniff. It's starting to look like we really have a solid centre back partnership forming and the relationship with the goalkeeper is also blossoming. Ramsdale's leap to prevent a certain tap in for Neal Maupay was a clear highlight with only a few minutes left on the clock. The bravery he showed in that moment bodes well and is a clear indicator of his tendency to be a keeper who is proactive, rather than reactive. There are encouraging signs there, as the lack of a solid foundation has held us back for far too long.

I completely get the argument that we shouldn't be getting outplayed by Brighton, but lets get a bit of perspective. A win would have sent Brighton second in the league, level on points with leaders Chelsea. I know I made reference to the strength, or lack of, of the opponents that they have faced so far this season, but ultimately they have got the job done against those sides and got the points on the board. Maybe a few of us, myself included, were guilty of underestimating them and taking them a bit too lightly?

And lets give some credit to Brighton and Graham Potter too. They are an extremely well coached team where every man knew exactly what they were doing. The press from the front was excellently executed and stopped us trying to play out, forcing us t0 go long. But then you are going long at Shane Duffy, Dan Burn and Lewis Dunk. Three centre backs who make dealing with that kind of ball an artform. There was Marc Cucurella playing at left wing-back. The former Barcelona youth player was up and down his flank all game, giving Tomiyasu absolute nightmares. 

All in all I'm happy enough with the point. following our torrid start to the league campaign, we've taken 10 points from a possible 12, a return that very few of us would have turned down. It wasn't the win that we had hoped for and the performance was a it of a comedown from last week, but the green shoots are still there to see. This was a different kind of performance to be encouraged by. One full of grit and determination. I'm sure the young squad will take as much, if not more, from it as they did after a Sunday afternoon stroll in the sun against Sp*rs

For now though we head in to another international break, so a chance to regroup, regather and get ready for the next round of league fixtures, beginning with the homecoming of one Patrick Vieira and Crystal Palace a whole two weeks away.