Mikel Arteta offered no excuses after Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton, identifying technical errors as a major reason behind their first Premier League loss of the season.
The Gunners arrived at the Amex Stadium with a perfect league record but were comprehensively beaten on the south coast.
Pascal Groß opened the scoring before Charalampos Kostoulas doubled Brighton’s advantage before half-time. Chema Andrés then added a third after the break.
As covered in our Brighton 3-0 Arsenal match report, Mikel Arteta’s side struggled to turn possession into meaningful attacking pressure.
The Arsenal manager believes the problems went much deeper than finishing.
Mikel Arteta criticises Arsenal’s technical performance
Arteta highlighted Arsenal’s inability to compete for duels and second balls before turning his attention to their work in possession.
Speaking after the defeat, Arteta said: “Full credit to Brighton in the manner they performed and went about the game. They were another gear from us in the basics of the game.”
He added that Arsenal were “extremely poor technically” when attempting to build from their own half.
That proved particularly costly against Fabian Hürzeler’s aggressive man-to-man pressing system.
Arteta explained that Arsenal failed to follow the principles required to escape that pressure and repeatedly gave Brighton opportunities to attack from dangerous areas.
The warning signs arrived almost immediately.
“From the first throw-in you could sense it, it was so clear,” Arteta said.
“We put ourselves in trouble one time, two times, three times and we needed to get out of that much quicker than that.”
Those problems underline why Arsenal’s defensive fitness situation will remain important during the international break.
The latest Arsenal injury picture before Brighton included doubts over Ben White, Piero Hincapié and Cristhian Mosquera, while Jurriën Timber had only recently returned.
Brighton defeat gives Arsenal major international-break lesson
Arteta refused to allow one poor performance to erase Arsenal’s strong opening weeks.
He instead wants the Brighton loss to become a reference point for the standards required throughout the campaign.
“It’s not going to take away what the team has done in the last six or seven weeks,” Arteta said.
“But this is a big lesson for all of us to understand what it takes to win at this level.”
The timing gives Arsenal an extended opportunity to respond.
Several players will now leave for international duty before Arteta begins preparations for the Premier League restart.
Arsenal return to action against Leeds United at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday 10 October.
That gives Arteta almost three weeks to assess what went wrong at Brighton.
The biggest lesson appears clear.
Arsenal cannot expect their technical quality to rescue them when their basic principles disappear under pressure.
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