Match Preview: Brighton v Arsenal
It says much about the decline at Arsenal that here we are writing a match preview for their trip to the Amex with it looking like the most winnable game that Brighton have in a horror run of fixtures.
Wolverhampton Wanderers away. Leicester City away. Manchester United at home. Liverpool at home. Manchester City at home. All of those look tougher than taking on the present day Gunners.
You could even make a case that Norwich City away is a more difficult assignment. Brighton have been victorious just twice on the road all season – including at the Emirates – and we’ve never won away at a newly promoted side in the Premier League.
Suddenly, the trip to Carrow Road doesn’t look like the easy fixture that many people would assume. Instead, it’s the visit of Arsenal which provides the Albion with their best chance of picking up three points between now and the Liverpool game at the end of April.
No pressure then…
A brief history of Arsenal
Arsenal were formed in 1886 as Dial Square FC. Since then, they’ve had more names than P Diddy having been known as Royal Arsenal, Woolwich Arsenal, The Arsenal and finally Arsenal, as they are known today. They were also the original franchise football club, arriving in North London from south of the river in 1913. The MK Dons of the 1910s.
That move sparked a fierce rivalry with Tottenham Hotspur, which these days seems to be more important to the supporters of both clubs than actually winning trophies. Just as well really given that there is little chance of any silverware heading to either the Emirates Stadium or the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium anytime soon.
Which is a break from the norm as historically, Arsenal are one of the biggest clubs in the country. They’ve won 13 league titles, 13 FA Cups and two League Cups. Arsene Wenger revolutionised English football during his 22 years at the helm, winning two doubles and overseeing an unbeaten league season – the only side to achieve the feat other than Preston North End.
Wenger was hounded out by supporters at the end of the 2017-18 season and it’s been pretty much downhill from there. Arsenal fans turned their sights on another manager with Unai Emery lasting less than 18 months and since his departure, they’ve started a bizarre campaign against Arsenal Fan TV.
Never before in the history of football has a supporter website been blamed for a club not challenging for a Champions League spot. Host Robbie Lyle even required a police escort out of the away end at Goodison Park back in December.
Hopefully, this blaming blogs and other football content creators catches on. We can’t wait for the “WeAreBrighton.com Get Out of Our Club” campaign to start, leading to the WAB team being bundled out of our away game at Rotherham United next February.
Arsenal this season
It’s been a bit of a weird season for Arsenal. Between August and December, they won just five Premier League matches which left them on the cusp of a relegation battle. Emery lost his job as a result with Mikel Arteta leaving his role as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City to take over at the Emirates.
Arteta endured a slow start to his managerial career, but the Gunners have picked up markedly since the turn of the year. They beat Manchester United 2-0 on New Year’s Day, since when they’ve gone unbeaten in the Premier League. That form leaves them just five points off fifth spot which may offer a Champions League place due to City’s ban from continental competition for breaking financial fair play rules.
A return to the top table of European football would represent an excellent first half-season in charge for Arteta, especially given where they’ve come from.
Brighton’s head-to-head record against Arsenal
Now you might be expecting this match preview to tell you that Arsenal have been the dominant side in their previous meetings with Brighton. After all, the Gunners have spent most of their history winning stuff while the Albion, well, haven’t.
Despite the disparity in success between the clubs, the head-to-head is actually pretty close when it comes to league fixtures. In 13 previous top flight games, Brighton have won four, Arsenal six with three draws.
Overall however, the numbers don’t make for great reading for the Albion. When FA Cup, League Cup and wartime football are thrown into the mix, we’ve only got five wins from 32. The Gunners in contrast have 22 victories.
For the purposes of positivity, we’ll just focus on those first figures thanks.
Brighton’s head-to-head record with Arsenal
Last six meetings
• Arsenal 1-2 Brighton (Premier League, 05/12/19)
• Arsenal 1-1 Brighton (Premier League, 05/05/19)
• Brighton 1-1 Arsenal (Premier League, 26/12/18)
• Brighton 2-1 Arsenal (Premier League, 04/03/18)
• Arsenal 2-0 Brighton (Premier League, 01/10/17)
• Brighton 2-3 Arsenal (FA Cup Fourth Round, 25/01/15)
Brighton’s decent league record against Arsenal is largely down to the past four meetings in which the Albion have gone unbeaten. The 2-1 win at the Emirates back in December was a particularly memorable night as not only did it deliver a first win away at one of the big six, but it was an evening in which Brighton played their illustrious opponents off the park. Of course, we’ve only won once in the league since.
Team news
There has been a growing clamour this week for Alexis Mac Allister to be given a start, based on nothing other than the fact that he took two free kicks in last week’s 0-0 draw at Wolverhampton Wanderers. Graham Potter has played it very carefully thus far with the Argentinian wonder kid and based on that, the suspicion is that Mac Allister will have to make do with another cameo from the bench.
Solly March might be in danger of the chop having missed two gilt-edged opportunities in as many weeks but the defensive qualities that he brings to the party could prove valuable against in-form opponents like Arsenal. It’s hard to to see anywhere that Potter could make changes to be honest, which probably means that we’ll have six players swapped around and a switch in formation.
Arsenal’s key players
Normally, a match preview for a game against Arsenal would feature a list of key players that was both long and would strike fear into the heart of most Brighton supporters. Not so much these days, when the only genuine world class talent in the Gunners squad is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who already has 20 goals for the season.
A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Arsenal at home
Brighton picked up their first win against top six opponents when Arsenal came to the Amex in March 2018. Glenn Murray and Lewis Dunk were both on target in a game which hammered another nail into Wenger’s coffin.
A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Arsenal at home
The 2015 FA Cup Fourth Round tie wasn’t a good experience for one member of the WAB team. Not eating all day coupled with 10 pints of San Miguel coupled with going to the Walkabout at 1am in the morning to watch the WWE Royal Rumble resulted in a lot of sick being deposited in places that weren’t the toilet. Still, at least Chris O’Grady scored that day.
Our favourite player to play for Brighton and Arsenal
When Brighton were the second worst team in the entire Football League structure in the 1997-98 season, signing foreign players brought about levels of great excitement. Even if they were shit. That was certainly the case when it came to Icelandic midfielder Valur Gislason, who the Albion acquired on loan from Arsenal.
He was so terrible that no actual photos of him in a Brighton shirt exist. This preview is probably one of the very few articles on the internet that even references Gislason was actually a real person and that he played for both Brighton and Arsenal.
He therefore seems a strange choice to get excited about – but when you’re a 10-year-old supporter of the side 91st out of 92 in the English pyramid and you sign a foreigner from Arsenal, that’s what happens.
What we like about Arsenal
Arsenal Fan TV is superb entertainment and when it riles up so many people, it’s very clearly doing something right.
Away from football, the Islington area features two excellent prisons which have housed some famous inmates down the years. HMP Pentonville has held George Best, Boy George and George Michael while Oscar Wilde was also imprisoned there for the crime of being gay. Manchester City’s oil-rich owners like this.
On the female side, HMP Holloway was home to many suffragettes who were jailed for fighting for women’s rights such as Emmeline Pankhurst, Emily Davison and Constance Markievicz. Manchester City’s oil-rich owners also like this.
Prediction
Brighton seem to have developed something of a hold over Arsenal in recent encounters. This is reflected in the fact that we haven’t predicted an Albion defeat against the Gunners in a preview for any of the past four matches. Make that five now – we’re going or a 1-1 draw this time around.
