Match Preview: Can Brighton pick up second home win of 2020 v Arsenal?
Every match preview of Brighton v Arsenal will probably touch on this point, but it is worth reiterating. If the Albion manage to beat Mikel Arteta’s side, then they will have won two Premier League matches at the Amex in the whole of 2020 and both will have been against Arsenal.
Chelsea (twice), Aston Villa, Watford, Crystal Palace, Manchester United (twice), Liverpool (twice), Manchester City, Newcastle United, West Bromwich Albion, Burnley, Southampton and Sheffield United have all left Sussex with something to show for their efforts this calendar year.
What a fall from grace it would be for a club known for its double winners, its invincibles and who revolutionised English football in the late 1990s under Arsene Wenger to be the only side to have lost at Brighton in 2020. Twice.
Arsenal this season
After lifting the FA Cup at the end of the 2019-20 season, hopes were high that Arteta could have Arsenal challenging for a place in the Champions League again.
Instead, they have gone backwards and find themselves stuck on the periphery of the relegation battle with nearly half the current campaign played.
The Gunners currently sit 15th in the table, one place and four points better off than Brighton. It is their worst start to a season for 46 years with problems including a lack of investment in their squad, senior players who seem not to care, Arteta’s inexperience, the circus surrounding Mesut Ozil’s banishment from the squad, and the controversial redundancy of Gunnersaurus.
Whilst the rest of the football world has thoroughly enjoyed the meltdown happening at the Emirates – apart from their shameful treatment of a seven foot tall dinosaur – it serves as a reminder that in the harsh environment of the Premier League, even one of the biggest clubs in the world can struggle if they stand still for too long.
Recent form
Arsenal had gone seven games without a victory prior to their 3-1 home win over Chelsea on Boxing Day, losing to Aston Villa, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspur, Burnley and Everton, and drawing with The Leeds United and Southampton in that run.
Arteta tried a new approach for the visit of the Blues, chucking in more of his talented young players. The thinking behind the decision was that academy products care more about the club and have a point to prove and with the likes of Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe all starting, the Gunners easily saw off Frank Lampard’s side.
If Arsenal have turned a corner, then this could be a bad time for Brighton to play them. Although the Albion have only lost three of their past 11 matches, only one of those has ended in victory. We do not need to drag up that appalling record at the Amex again for the second time in our Brighton v Arsenal preview.
With both West Brom and Burnley having winnable matches against The Leeds United and Sheffield United respectively, if the Seagulls fail to beat Arsenal then there is a real danger of Burnley leapfrogging Brighton and the Baggies moving to within two points by the time matchday 16 is over.
Brighton v Arsenal head-to-head
Brighton’s head-to-head record against Arsenal makes for interesting reading. There have been 33 previous meetings with the Gunners the dominant force, winning 22 of those compared to Brighton’s six. Five matches have ended in draws.
When you remove wartime football, the FA Cup and the League Cup the picture becomes much more rosy from an Albion perspective. In 14 league matches, all played in the top flight, Brighton have won five and Arsenal six with three draws.
Considering that the Gunners have always been towards the top of the table in every season in which Brighton have played at the highest level – save for 2020-21 so far – that the head-to-head is so close is very impressive from an Albion point of view.
Brighton’s head-to-head record with Arsenal
Last six meetings
• Brighton 2-1 Arsenal (Premier League, 20/06/20)
• 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)
That impressive head-to-head record is largely down to what has has happened since Brighton won promotion to the Premier League. Only once in the subsequent six matches between Seagulls and Gunners have Arsenal won, a 2-0 success at the Emirates in October 2017 when Chris Hughton was forced into using Izzy Brown as a false nine because of injuries to Glenn Murray and Sam Baldock and Tomer Hemed being ruled out through suspension.
Brighton picked up their first ever win against one of the ‘big six’ when beating Arsenal at the Amex six months later. The Gunners then became the first ‘big six’ side Brighton took a point away against in May 2020, the first they won away at in December 2020 and the first they completed a double over back in June.
Neal Maupay scored a 95th minute winner that day, got throttled afterwards by Mattéo Guendouzi and then used a post-match interview to say that Arsenal needed to learn some humility, causing significant amounts of rage among the Gunners faithful. File that one under things you love to see.
Team news
Arsenal will be the Albion’s second game in the space of 48 hours and as we said in our West Ham v Brighton preview, that might force Graham Potter’s hand into carrying out even more rotation than normal.
We do know that Tariq Lamptey and Adam Lallana are both out. Aaron Connolly missed the trip to the London Stadium with a problem he picked up on Christmas Eve and is likely to be unavailable again.
What would we do if we were Potter? Not play Ben White as a right wing back would be a good start. Steve Alzate was not great in the second half against West Ham after replacing Lallana, which surely means it is time to give Davy Propper his first Premier League start of the season.
Leandro Trossard too has been a disappointment of late as a number 10. His selection has been made all the more baffling by Pascal Gross claiming two goals and two assists from that position before Potter decided to use him as a holding midfielder in the 3-0 defeat at Leicester City, after which Gross was dropped for having a poor game despite it being Potter’s fault for playing him out of position.
This is Potter though, so none of those eminently sensible suggestions will happen. Expect to see Dan Burn up front and Jason Steele in midfield.
Arsenal’s key players
Normally this section of our Brighton v Arsenal preview would list the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, David Luiz and Ozil as the players to keep an eye on.
None of those have performed particularly well this season, which explains why this game could be viewed as a relegation six pointer. Instead, it is younger players such as Saka and Kieran Tierney who have taken the plaudits.
Hector Bellerin has also been impressive enough to be linked with a move to Barcelona. Should Bellerin depart, then Arsenal want to sign Lamptey as his replacement according to the January transfer rumour mill.
Selling Lamptey to Bayern Munich or Atletico Madrid is one thing but to willingly flog him to a relegation rival would require a seriously big bid from the Gunners.
The betting value for Brighton v Arsenal
We picked out the draw at 5/2 for in our West Ham v Brighton match preview and although there is marginally less value in the 49/20 odds on offer for the same result against Arsenal, we fancy another stalemate.
Elsewhere, there are a couple of reasons to think that Maupay might be on target. He always seems to play well against sides who hate him, as Arsenal and their fans quite clearly do.
He is also one of those players whose goals tend to come in streaks. With the monkey of a three month barren run ended via his opener at the London Stadium, it would not be a surprise to see him enjoy a good scoring spell. 12/5 for the Frenchman to net anytime seems a decent bet.
An interesting subplot
This should have been the section of our Brighton v Arsenal match preview which brought up Guendouzi v Maupay round two. Unfortunately though, the Sideshow Bob look-a-like’s behaviour at the Amex disgusted Arteta so much that Gunedouzi has been shipped off on loan to Hertha Berlin this season.
Now, how do we embed the Maupay crying celebration emoji on here…
A good WeAreBrighton.com memory of Brighton v Arsenal
On the subject of Maupay, the Frenchman was responsible for one of the best Arsenal Fan TV moments ever following the June meeting at the Amex. Ty took a moment to take the knee, thank the NHS… and then proceeded to stride up to the camera and scream about Maupay being a complete disgrace.
What better way to stand up against racial discrimination and pay tribute to keyworkers than by launching into a tirade against a Brighton & Hove Albion centre forward. Incredible stuff.
A bad WeAreBrighton.com memory of Brighton v Arsenal
Arsenal’s visit to the Amex in the fourth round of the FA Cup in the 2014-15 season was a pretty grim experience. The football was not bad as Brighton were far from disgraced in losing 3-2 to the eventual winners.
Afterwards however the WAB team found themselves in Walkabout watching the WWE Royal Rumble until 3am in the morning. A 13 hour drinking session on a Sunday with no food had predictable consequences of a lot of sick and a hangover which lasted three days.
Arsenal’s most famous fan
Got to be Sussex boy Piers Morgan, hasn’t it? Normally, we would be slating him for not supporting his local team but frankly, Arsenal are welcome to him.
Prediction
A 1-1 draw. Not a particularly good result for either side, but one that will at least give Potter an Albion club record as the manager who has overseen the worst calendar year at home of any Brighton boss.
