Brighton v Arsenal; injuries, goalscoring and Brighton’s trajectory

 

 

• Brighton v Arsenal, the tackles and fouls and the worrying approach of referees
• Brighton v Arsenal: the referee who favours the away team!
• Brighton v Arsenal: why Brighton will go for a draw

By Bulldog Drummond

Much is being made of Arsenal’s high number of injuries, although in pure number terms, Arsenal are not that far away from most clubs.  Arsenal are listed by the Premier League injury site has having six men out: Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Raheem Sterling, Jurrien Timber (suspended), Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka.   Of these Kai Havertz should be recovered from his illness so we are back to five.

Brighton and Hove had nine men out, and indeed the only clubs in the league with five or fewer are Everton, Liverpool and Fulham (four each),  and West Ham with five.   We might compare Arsenal’s situation with that of the ever-mighty Tottenham Hots with their wonderful stadium and ten players listed as unavailable, which looks a bit like carelessness.

If we take a look at the top of the table we see

 

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	18	14	3	1	45	17	28	45
2	Arsenal	19	11	6	2	38	17	21	39
3	Nottingham Forest	19	11	4	4	26	19	7	37
4	Chelsea	19	10	5	4	38	23	15	35
5	Newcastle United	19	9	5	5	32	21	11	32
6	Manchester City	19	9	4	6	32	26	6	31

 

…Arsenal are now clearly in second place, and not just two points above Nottingham F but also with a massively superior goal difference and the equal-best defence in the league.

As before we might also consider which teams that consider themselves to be part of the elite are not there, and in fact whereas last time we looked at this, quite a few seemed to have slipped.  Indeed now we have just two clubs that might expect themselves to be near the top, not there at all.   Theese are of course Tottenham Hots who are now 15 points behind Arsenal and Manchester United, 17 points behind Arsenal.

It might also be a good moment to have a look at the goalscoring so far this season across all the competitions.  Kai Havertz is of course top, as that is what he is there to do.  He has 12 goals.  Saka will of course be stuck on his nine goals for some time, but behind him are Gabriel Jesus on seven, Gabriel Martinelli on six and Gabriel  on four.   Also on four are Ethan Nwaneri and Leandro Trossard.

But undoubtedly the most encouraging information for Arsenal ahead of this match remains Brighton’s recent form compared to Arsenal’s.  In the last seven games Brighton have drawn five and lost two, scoring eight, and conceding 12.  And these games have not been against the top teams, but have involved Brighton playing the likes of Southampton, Fulham, Leicester City, Crystal Palace, West Ham, Brentford and Aston Villa.

Those games have all been in the league and if we just look at Arsenal’s last seven games in the league we have five wins and two draws.  In between which we have also had a League Cup and Champions League victory.  But to stay just with the seven league games, the goalscoring has been 17 for Arsenal and five for the opposition.

So this is all looking rather promising.

But we should of course also consider where Brighton have come from.   They have been in the Premier League for seven seasons; this is their eighth in the current run   Only twice in this time have they finished in the top half of the table – ninth in 2021/22 and sixth in 2022/23.  So their current position of 10th halfway through the season is not one to be sniffed at, and their aim must surely be a top-ten finish.  Equalling the 2022/23 position of 6th would  be seen as a considerable success for a club with a ground capacity of 32,500.

It is also worth remembering that last season the club played in the Europa League for the first time, and got through the group stage, going out in the round of 16 going out to Roma who themselves got to the semi-finals.  Again, this is not a team to be considered one of the lesser clubs in the league.

Next up, the Arsenal team