Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta felt his team were “on the back foot” in their 3-0 shock defeat at Brighton & Hove Albion.
Goals from Pascal Gross, Charalampos Kostoulas and Andres saw Brighton mark their 125th anniversary match with a shock win over Arteta’s Gunners, which saw Arsenal slip to second behind Manchester City on goal difference after they began the match sat top of the Premier League.
“Very disappointed,” rued Arteta post-match as he slammed both Arsenal’s performance and the result but he admitted that he was impressed with how Brighton took the fight to his players and won on merit.
“First of all with the performance and then with the result. I think we need to give credit to Brighton as well, the manner that they played today, the way they competed today, and overall I think they deserve to win the game.
“A lot was down to us, certain standards and basic things that we didn’t do at all. That put us on the back foot right from the beginning of the match. Without the ball, when we had to win the first duel of the second ball.”
The loss marked Arsenal’s first top flight loss since they lost 2-1 at Man City in April 2026 and Arteta feels that the defeat is necessary if they’re to improve their game, especially after a tough summer saw everyone rejoin pre-season at different stages due to World Cup participation.
“We need to feel the pain. That’s not going to take away our perspective and how much we value what the team has done in the first six or seven weeks of the season.
“Coming back after the World Cup with 18 players involved, with everybody coming at late stages, the way we have competed, the way we have played, the way we have dominated. It’s been really good. But today we need to take this lesson very, very seriously because it’s going to happen.
“I think we need to look at it in isolation first and get the learnings and then we can put it into the overall picture.”
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