With a seven-point gap over Manchester City, 2023 promises a lot for Arsenal. If the World Cup was targeted at the start of the season and brought considerable collateral damage, Mikel Arteta’s side have yet to lose their stride.
There are vulnerabilities. Brighton scored twice late in the second half, another ruled out by VAR, to prevent this from turning into a New Year’s Eve parade. There will be more nerves to contend with, starting at Newcastle on Tuesday, and Arteta will soon have to find some way to hide his personal fears.
At times, he cut a tortured figure, but in Bukayo Saka, Martin Ødegaard, Eddie Nketiah and Gabriel Martinelli, each of them goalscorers, Ødegaard delivering a brilliant and creative performance, there is much more to them than Gabriel Jesus. “A great win, I’m very happy, they made it difficult for us,” said Arteta. “Every game is a big test.”
Brighton had only lost three of their previous 10 Premier League meetings with Arsenal and would finally play their part, but it took just 70 seconds to concede. Martinelli took the ball after Ødegaard’s surge, and the ball eventually deflected for Saka to finish.
It could soon have been both, Robert Sanchez smothering as Oleksandr Zinchenko broke away down the left, where Tariq Lamptey struggled with the effervescence of Martinelli. The Ghanaian’s strengths lie in attack, and from his overlap Leandro Trossard, Brighton’s false number 9, had a shot deflected. His knickers and pant legs muddy as he walked, Arteta cursed as Trossard forced Aaron Ramsdale into a high save.
Ødegaard, leading by example of excellence rather than chest, put a smile back on his coach’s face just before the break. First to a second ball after a Saka corner, the Norwegian’s goal owed much more to fortune than his otherwise flawless technique. “I think it was a great goal,” he said. “Three points was all today.”
“He’s doing what we want him to do, decide football games,” Arteta said of his captain. “All front four players score today, it’s great news.”
Gabriel Martinelli latches on to Martin Ødegaard’s pass and fires into the Arsenal quarter. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA
For Brighton, there was no sign of Alexis Mac Allister, still missing, although presumably sober from the Argentina celebrations. He received a warm ovation in the pre-match only for the stadium announcer to ask, presumably in jest, if anyone had the midfielder’s number.
The Argentine could have replaced Moises Caicedo, who was suspended after being booked in Southampton’s 3-1 defeat. Billy Gilmour, with Pascal Gross, battled in midfield. With Mac Allister and Caicedo at the top of January transfer wish lists, Roberto de Zerbi and club CEO Paul Barber, recently honored in the King’s New Year’s honours, may soon require more permanent midfield solutions . “I can’t say anything else that Mac Allister is in my team at Brighton, I can’t tell you anything else,” De Zerbi said.
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By scoring in the first minute of the second half, Arsenal looked to have their painful advantage over City. Saka started the play before Nketiah came on after Sanchez could only parry Martinelli’s shot. Nketiah did not start a Premier League game before Jesus’ injury at the World Cup, but has since scored twice in two starts.
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Three goals up, Arteta took off Zinchenko and Ben White for Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu, to protect key players. When Kaoru Mitoma cut in from the space left by his lax Japanese compatriot to score, it was a reminder of the confidence Arteta has shown in his starting XI, his squad far thinner than their pursuers .
Within those bare bones is the quality of Ødegaard, whose extraordinary pass set up Martinelli’s goal before teenager Evan Ferguson’s first Premier League goal set up a climax in which Brighton showed a danger that had not been missing in its first half.
“Maybe we need to control the game a little bit better,” Ødegaard admitted. “We let them in a couple of times, but they’re a good team, good on the ball.”
When Mitoma had the ball in the net for the second time, a miraculous comeback was seen, only for technology to intervene. “Martinelli’s last goal, it closed the game,” shrugged De Zerbi afterwards.
Manic on the touchline during those final moments, Arteta called for a calm that his frenzied expression didn’t even remotely match. Finally he could breathe. His team could watch City from higher ground.