Yasin Ayari believes that “intense” pressing was key to Brighton & Hove Albion’s 3-0 Premier League victory over Arsenal.
Brighton marked their 125th anniversary match with a dominant display against the reigning top-flight champions through goals from Pascal Gross, Charalampos Kostoulas and Chema Andres.
Ayari played the entirety of that match and believes that intensity was integral to their success which left them sat third in the table as the international break began.
“You have to be intense,” explained Ayari to Brighton’s official website as he spoke of the need for aggression and limiting Arsenal’s time on the ball. “You have to be aggressive against teams like this if you want to win.
“If you give them too much time and, they feel comfortable playing around, then it’s going to be hard.
“We had to put pressure on them because we know that we’re a good team when we play with a lot of intensity.
“I think everyone saw that we wanted to press and wanted to win the ball and it paid off for us.”
Ayari also iterated that Brighton are seeking to play their intensely pressing style regularly which requires high level of fitness, which the squad has worked on all summer.
“We want to play the way we played, to win the ball as high up the pitch as possible, and you have to be fit to do that.
“We emphasise this every day and we train hard to be able to play like this.
“I always try to train as hard as possible. I think the culture at the club is that everyone knows the standards they need to meet.
“When we started this summer, everyone was fit and had been doing their training.”
The 22-year-old Sweden international also believes that the result represents a platform for them kick on from and try to find consistency plus more victories.
“For me personally and for the team as well a result like that was good because we won the game against the best team in England,”
“We still want to go and win many more games and be more consistent. We want to go on a good run now and keep it going.
“We’re taking it game by game. We don’t think too much about where we can finish.”
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