LONDON — Injuries at the back, misfiring in attack and three points in the bag. Don’t you hate it when they pad out the schedules with reruns over Christmas?
Arsenal’s 2-1 win over Brighton was of a sort with the three points gained against Wolves, Everton, arguably even Brentford, a fingernail shredder of a victory that ought to have been more authoritative. It is not often that a team rains down 24 shots on their opponents, has 55 penalty box touches while allowing 19 and finds themselves clinging on at the death. At least it is not often when the team is not Arsenal in December 2025.
Really there is probably not a lot more to this than finishing variance. Since the start of December Arsenal have scored five actual goals (and have been gifted three own goals) from shots worth 9.63 xG. Scrub Viktor Gyokeres’ penalty from the equation — about the only way he is going to get a quality shot right now — and the shooting looks even more wayward. A team who routinely compete for championships are highly unlikely to keep doing this though.
It feels different because it’s Arsenal and they’ve been burned by variance a lot over the past 18 months. The Raul Jimenez goals, the weird red cards, those injuries that you can’t see coming. The thing is that the ball doesn’t usually bounce back to give Diego Gomez an open goal off Brighton’s first shot from inside the penalty area. Usually when you play as well as Arsenal did today, you win handily rather than rely on a wonder save from David Raya late on. Mikel Arteta knows that as well as anyone.
“The margin should have been much bigger,” he said. “The amount of situations, chances, open chances that we generated through the game, it should never be 2-1, but that’s the Premier League. I think the first shot that they had, they scored the goal and then David [Raya] has to make another save to maintain the result.
“What I like is that we have a lot of issues, we’re dealing with it in an incredible way, yesterday we lost Jurrien [Timber], today we lost [Riccardo] Calafiori in the warm-up, Declan [Rice] has to play as a full-back and you see the performance that he put in, so that’s the spirit and that’s how much our players want it.”
What matters more than spirit, though, is performance and the performance was there. There was a wobble around Diego Gomez’s second-half goal, but in the first half Arsenal were outstanding, throttling Brighton’s attack while creating a mountain of chances themselves. Martin Odegaard was back to his best, conducting drives up field and drilling home the opener with precision and power. Even as the Emirates grew antsy, the hosts attacked with more oomph than they had offered against Wolves. Gabriel Martinelli missed at close range and Bukayo Saka rolled wide on the breakaway.
Take the xG from this game, which does not account for Georginio Rutter flicking Rice’s corner past his own goalkeeper, and run it into a match simulator and you end up with a game that ends up with a two-plus goal margin of victory 61% of the time. One in five of these games end up in a proper four goal plus paddling.
That result might just be in the post if Arsenal keep up these performances. “It has to be [coming],” said Arteta, “because we have a lot of quality. What I like is the way we play, the way we produce, how willing the players are to take that initiative, that aggression to make things happen.
“This is a very, very difficult team to play against, and I think we’ve done really well for the majority of the game.”
Relief should come. It might take the form of an easing of an injury crisis that only intensified today. Jurrien Timber was ruled out of the matchday squad after an awkward landing in training. Riccardo Calafiori had been due to start but had to drop out of the XI with an issue he had suffered on Friday, one that Arteta described as “very, very strange.” Santiago Canizares strange or Willie E. Coyote? Arteta will never tell.
Still, amid all the injuries and the off-color finishing, Arsenal are holding firm. If this is their wobble it will be one in which they have 12 points from a possible 15, 16 from 21 since the international break. Manchester City might have closed the gap but each time they have challenged the Gunners to restore their lead, the lead has been restored.
Arteta sees a light at the end of the tunnel. “We survived six months, so let’s see, there’s another five and a half to go, so hopefully things will get better. The good news as well, for example we’ve got Gabi, we’ve got Gabi earlier than expected, which is great.”
The return of one of the game’s outstanding center backs should only solidify the foundations and deliver improved performances. Results worthy of Arsenal’s lofty standing may be round the corner.
