Match Review: Brighton 2-1 Arsenal

They said that there would be a “new normal” in the post-lockdown world. For Brighton & Hove Albion, winning games of football is certainly something of an unfamiliar experience after 25 weeks without a victory, but beating the once-mighty Arsenal 2-1 is nothing new.

Six times the Albion have met one of the most famous clubs in the world since winning promotion to the Premier League and five times they have avoided defeat.

Brighton’s record against the Gunners reads three wins, two draws, one loss. Those Arsenal fans who were losing their minds afterwards at defeat to “a team like Brighton” seemed blissfully unaware that Brighton beating Arsenal has become something as accepted in the world as the two metre rule and wearing a face mask on public transport. The new normal for the Albion.

And it is just as well really that Brighton seem to have developed a hold over the Gunners. With games against Leicester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City still to come, Arsenal at home looked like one of Brighton’s few winnable fixtures from a final nine which will decide whether we are still in the Premier League next season to pick up more points from our new favourite opponents.

Graham Potter and the players delivered, but only just. Neal Maupay’s 95th minute winner which secured the 2-1 win over Arsenal was the latest goal Brighton have scored in the top flight.

Had supporters been allowed in the Amex, then a large majority would have missed it by leaving early to get home. Instead, everyone sat in front of their television screens got to witness the joy of a goal in the final seconds.

Perhaps football behind closed doors isn’t all that bad? You can even watch it with a bag of Starburst bought for £1.10 from the local corner shop, rather than remortgaging your house to pay Paul Barber’s £3.20 prices.

Maupay certainly seemed to enjoy himself as the pantomime villain in the new footballing world. That started when he chased down a ball over the top, causing Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno to dislocate his knee with nine minutes of the first half remaining.

Leno wasn’t happy with the incident, taking time out from his agony as he was stretchered off to deliver a finger point of doom at Maupay for causing the horrific injury.

It was a situation which led to much debate from both sets of supporters and those working in the media. Arsenal fans wanted Maupay sent off, banned for life or locked up in a cell with Peter Sutcliffe for his heinous crime of challenging for a loose ball.

Brighton supporters meanwhile desperately fought their player’s corner, saying there was absolutely nothing wrong with Maupay attempting to push a flying goalkeeper out of the area in order to gain an advantage.

Jake Humphrey used his platform on BT Sport to call Maupay’s actions “a cowardly attack”. Given that Humphrey was also the man who told us all that we could look forward to watching an exciting and expansive Norwich City team this season compared to boring old Brighton (current gap between the two sides – 11 points), then you can take anything that shyster says with a pinch of salt.

Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand sided with Maupay, two judges who clearly know more than a Norwich fan who used to present cars racing around a track on television.

The truth about the incident was somewhere in the middle. Maupay had ever right to go for the ball and Leno had every right to be pissed off, given that Maupay’s nudge caused the German goalkeeper to need to check back to try and stay in his box and that is what led to his knee twisting out of place.

Maupay apologised following the game in his post-match interview, before telling Arsenal to learn some humility. That came after Matteo Guendouzi nudged Maupay slightly in the final seconds, leading Maupay to go down like he had been shot by a fan with a sniper rifle who had snuck into the West Upper.

Once the final whistle blew, Guendouzi launched a far less subtle attack on Maupay by grabbing him around the throat. Social distancing went out the window as players from both sides piled in with handbags swinging.

A repeat of the famous 2003 Battle of Old Trafford this was not, which served as another reminder of how Arsenal have fallen. Long gone are the days when Martin Keown, Ashley Cole, Kolo Toure and Thierry Henry would surround a Manchester United player and hound him for missing a penalty on their way to going an entire league season undefeated.

Now, Arsenal find themselves losing 2-1 away at Brighton and having a player who looks like Sideshow Bob strangling a centre forward bought from Brentford. The new normal for Gunners fans.

Leno’s injury aside, nothing much happened for the opening 68 minutes at the Amex. Bukayo Saka was the best player on the pitch as Arsenal created the better opportunities and Maty Ryan pulled off a number of smart stops from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in particular.

The game sparked into life when Arsenal’s £72 million record signing Nicolas Pepe bent a stunning goal up and over Ryan and into the top corner.

It was almost the exact same minute that Jordan Ayew had hit what proved to be Crystal Palace’s winner when Palace won 1-0 at the Amex in Brighton’s most recent home game.

The same shoddy defending which allowed Ayew to score had given Pepe the chance too. Solly March – a half time replacement for the booked Aaron Mooy – took two metre social distancing a little too far by standing off the Frenchman and allowing him to cut onto his favoured left foot to score. An excellent goal yes, but one that more could have been done to prevent.

Graham Potter responded to going behind with an immediate double change. Martin Montoya came on for Ezequiel Schelotto and Aaron Connolly joined Maupay up top in place of Pascal Gross.

With two strikers on the pitch, Brighton immediately looked more threatening. Scoring goals remains a problem however and so Lewis Dunk decided that rather than shooting, he would tackle the ball in for the Albion’s equaliser which came just four minutes after Potter’s substitutions.

March delivered a low corner, Maupay produced a lovely little flick towards goal and in the ensuing panic, Dunk put in a sliding tackle which just about poked the ball over the line. Will tackling rather than shooting become the new normal now?

Both sides were tiring as the game entered the final 10 but neither Brighton nor Arsenal seemed happy to settle for a point and it was the Albion who get rewarded for their positivity when Maupay struck to make it 2-1 deep into injury time.

Alexis Mac Allister was Potter’s fifth and final substitute in the 94th minute. Within 30 seconds, the Argentinian playmaker had played a lovely low pass into the area, Maupay dummied, Connolly flicked around the corner and Maupay collected to fire past Emiliano Martínez and win it for Brighton.

Much tougher tests lie ahead as Arsenal looked a shadow of the side who hadn’t lost a Premier League in 2020 before lockdown. The suspension of the season appears to have done them no favours but for Brighton, not playing for three months might be what ends up saving the Albion from relegation.

Had this game taken place as originally planned on March 14th, the Albion would have come into it with confidence at an all-time low after two wins in 19 – a worse run of form than that which saw Chris Hughton sacked.

Connolly would have missed the game injured. It is doubtful whether Mac Allister would have featured at all as he was still adjusting to life in a new country. That’s the two men who combined to tee up Maupay’s winner having potentially missed out three months ago.

Potter wouldn’t have had the luxury of five substitutions either to try and rescue something from the game after another strange starting selection.

A break of 15 weeks makes the remaining nine games feel like a new mini-season rather than the continuation of the old one which was heading off the rails for Brighton.

There is clearly more belief in the players now than in those demoralising home games against Aston Villa, Watford and Palace. From not knowing where the next three points were going to come from, the Albion are now five clear of the drop zone and eight short of the magical 40 mark.

One point a game from here on in will keep Brighton in the Premier League for the 2020-21 season. 95 minutes of the new-normal Premier League has been quite good for the Albion so far, even if there is nothing unusual in taking points off Arsenal these days.

Brighton 2-1 Arsenal. That’s just normal.