Arsenal 2-0 Brighton: The Debrief

Arsenal play one of their best matches of the season, moving to the top of the table

This turned out to be a just about perfect weekend for Arsenal.

Manchester City blew a 2-0 lead dropping points and 5 points back of Arsenal.

Liverpool huffed and puffed but could not get the ball in the net against the worst Manchester United team in decades, dropping a point behind Arsenal with the result.

And Arsenal played one of their best and most complete matches of the season against a Brighton team that has long caused them problems.

Let’s get into it.

Arsenal 2-0 Brighton: The Graphics

Arsenal 2-0 Brighton: The Debrief

26 - Shots for Arsenal against Brighton, the most they have taken in a match this season

2.6 - Expected Goals for Arsenal against Brighton, the second-highest non-penalty tally this season (Wolves 3.1)

5 - Big Chances for Arsenal against Brighton, the most Arsenal have had in a match this season (excluding penalties).

The raw shot totals are excellent for Arsenal but what makes me very happy is three things.

The first and most important was that this wasn’t a game of shoot-on-sight, these were mostly well-worked shots into good spots and not long-range efforts because there was nothing better to try.

9 - Shots with an xG value greater than 7%

Second, was that this was a very balanced day with the front five all contributing to things. All of the starting front 5 took at least 4 shots here, with only Buakyo Saka not breaking 0.2 xG on the day. This was also reflected in the players all getting roughly the same number of touches (Martinelli had the most with 64, Havertz the fewest at 41).

Third, was how Arsenal went about getting these shots. This was one of the best high-pressing days I have seen from Arsenal in a long while. Through the first 75 minutes of the match Arsenal very effectively bottled Birghton in their own half, they had just 26 entries into Arsenal’s final third, and just 68 total touches, turning into just one shot.

They did get a bit more joy in the final period of the match with Arsenal dialing back the press and looking to defend their lead but this was a suffocating performance.

The average of where the ball is really tells this story well, much better than something like possession because for most of the match, the ball was just in Brighton’s half. In this match Brighton did have more of the total possession, and had an even share of the longer stretches of possession (34 vs 35) but that didn’t translate into progression for them. If there is one thing perhaps that we could pick at Arsenal was that they were wasteful of the times that they did win the ball high against Brighton.

By my count they won the ball high 15 times but only turned that into 3 shots and none of those shots were especially dangerous generating just 0.06 xG.

Overall this was a match that I thought Arsenal’s out-of-possession shape was exquisite. They pressed and funneled Brighton into the areas they wanted them to have it, often at the sideline where they could trap, cut out the easy pass, and win the ball back. It was something that will make the tactics very happy and inspire hundreds of Twitter threads.

This pressing wasn’t just good at getting the ball back either, it was incredibly effective at keeping Brighton away from the goal.

64 - The minute that Brighton took their first shot in this match (looked offside anyway)

6 - Shots total, this is the second-lowest total this season and well off their average of nearly 15 per match

0 - Goals scored, the last time Brighton had not scored was back in February last season (although they were also held to 0 goals scored against Everton this season but had an own goal)

1 - Big chance in this match.

Odegaard continues his resurgence

59 - Pass Attempts, 2nd among Arsenal players.

93.2% - Pass completion percentage (crazy with the number of passes in the final third) on 113.9% Pass Efficiency

4 - Final 3rd Entry Passes

10 - Progressive Passes, 1st among Arsenal players

6 - Deep Completions within 25 yards of goal(not including crosses), 1st among Arsenal players

4 - Key Passes, 2nd among Arsenal players. All from open play.

0.19 - xA

5 - Shots, tied for 1st among Arsenal players

0.28 - xG, 3rd among Arsenal players

4 - Dribbles Completed, 1st among Arsenal players

4 - Progressive Carries

7 - Progressive Passes Received, 2nd among Arsenal players

10 - Touches in the box, 2nd among Arsenal players

1.90 - xG Chain, 2nd among Arsenal players

0 - Tackles

2 - Fouls, some of these fouls were really borderline and could have been good tackles setting Arsenal away

4 - Ball Recoveries, 2nd among Arsenal players

0.56 - Goal Probability Added, 3rd among Arsenal players

5.56 - Fields Gained with his ball progression passing and carrying

After a slow start Odegaard is looking like he is healthy and building back to his peak performance. He is developing a bit extra with the full midfield role as well this season and that is very nice to see from him.

Declan Rice has his ‘flu game’

59 - Pass Attempts, 2nd among Arsenal players

91.5% - Pass completion percentage with 109.7% - Pass Efficiency

9 - Final 3rd Entry Passes, 1st among Arsenal players

8 - Progressive Passes, 3rd among Arsenal players

4 - Long Passes Completed, 1st among Arsenal players

2 - Shots

0.24 - xG

4 - Progressive Carries, 3rd among Arsenal players

6 - Touches in the box, 5th among Arsenal players

1.91 - xG Buildup, 1st among Arsenal players

1 - Tackle

3 - Interceptions, 2nd among Arsenal players

4 - Ball Recoveries, 2nd among Arsenal players

0.35 - Goal Probability Added, 4th among Arsenal players

5.80 - Fields Gained with his ball progression passing and carrying, 3rd among Arsenal players

If I didn’t know that he was feeling unwell, you would never have suspected it with the way he played.

It feels like you can say this every week but he is a revelation for what he brings to the game. I can’t imagine that Arsenal would be close to where they are this season without his contributions to the team. He looks like he is legitimately the best defensive midfielder in the game right now and he plays for Arsenal.

What a player.