Brighton 3 Arsenal 0: Dreadful Gunners suffer shocking defeat as Gross, Kostoulas and Chema net in Seagulls rout

ON the day Brighton celebrated their 125th anniversary, their brilliant team delivered a performance for the ages. In their entire history, Brighton will not have had many weeks like this and battering the champions was the cherry on top of their cake on what was a fabulous occasion. Pascal Gross put Brighton ahead with a strike that went in off the post Credit: Reuters Veteran midfielder Gross celebrates his first-half opener Credit: Alamy The club was formed at the Seven Stars pub in Ship Street and had those businessmen been handed a crystal ball of what was to come in between beers, they would have been pretty pleased with themselves. Yet even ahead of this game, no-one expected this. Pascal Gross and Charalampos Kostoulas stunned Arsenal with two goals in the first half before Chema Andres added the third in what was a thoroughly un-Arsenal like performance. Sign up for the Arsenal newsletter Thank you! Brighton fans will long talk about this day, which came on the back of a 5-0 thrashing of Coventry and a 3-2 win at Manchester United. In contrast, here was a real warning for Arsenal. A right old kick up the backside just before the international break. If the first two goals were not bad enough, due to some lazy Arsenal defending, a stunned-looking Mikel Arteta will have nightmares about the third with Andres scoring with an easy header from a corner. When the third went in before the hour, Arteta decided there was no point berating his team anymore. He dropped his head towards the floor and trooped back to his dugout, knowing there was no way he could stop a shocking performance on the back of seven successive victories. It was Arsenal’s first Premier League defeat since the 2-1 loss to Manchester City in April when Declan Rice famously said “it’s not done”. Most read in Sport Well, this season is certainly not done. It’s just starting and Arsenal will probably win the title again, anyway. But here was a tap on the shoulder that even if a team drops their levels by five per cent against a dynamic team like Brighton, they will not get beaten but battered. Charalampos Kostoulas doubled their lead with another cracking effort from distance Credit: Getty Chema Andres nodded in a third as Arsenal crumbled Credit: Shutterstock Editorial Brighton continued their fantastic start to the season Credit: AP However, rather than just criticise Arsenal you have to praise Brighton who were bloody excellent A classic performance from a club whose clever business in the transfer market – in an era when many teams have lost the plot – represents everything that is right about the modern game. With the club celebrating their big day, in front of a record Amex crowd of 31944, Brighton’s players wore retro shirts – without stripes – marking the kit from their first season. Yet it is fair to say that the current squad, with its players from18 different countries, is a bit different to the one back in 1901. In March, after a 1-0 home loss to Arsenal, Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler said: “Only one team tried to play football today.” On this occasion, It was certainly the case here and Hurzeler will have loved every minute. Brighton started well, pressed high and forced Arsenal into mistakes. Bruno Guimaraes, making his first Premier League start for Arsenal, gave the ball away which led to an early Brighton chance, but David Raya got his fingertips to the shot from Kostoulas. And so their first goal was thoroughly deserved. It was a brilliant piece of football with Gross playing a part in the build-up before executing a fine, curling shot which Raya was unable to get a hand to. Christos Tzolis backed off both Gross and Yasin Ayari in two different moments. Mikel Arteta was left distraught as Arsenal were handed their first defeat of the season Credit: AFP Arsenal were given a real wake-up call at the Amex Credit: Shutterstock Editorial The Gunners were unusually shaky at the back Credit: Shutterstock Editorial Ezri Konsa did not get close enough to Kostoulas who played a quick pass to Gross who took advantage of Riccardo Calafiori not getting close enough. Remarkably, Kostoulas was given exactly the same amount of room when making it 2-0 just as the clock struck 45 minutes. Bukayo Saka was guilty of missing an easy chance but he sent a tame half-volley into the arms of Bart Verbruggen and 15 seconds later, the ball was in the back of the other net. Much to Arteta’s anger, Diego Gomez was given room to jog deep into Arsenal territory unchallenged and he found Kostoukas who, like his team-mate 14 minutes earlier, took two touches to pick his spot before sending a shot into the corner. On this occasion, Arsenal’s other centre-back, Gabriel Magalhaes had to do much better. Whatever Arteta said to his players at half-time did not make any difference,and you could not believe you were watching an Arsenal team defending a corner. A couple of players were unmarked but it was Spanish defensive midfielder Andres who rose easily above Calafioro to score at the far post Struijk should have punished more poor marking from a corner with the fourth but it hardly mattered and Raya delivered a good save from Matt Riley. At the end, Brighton’s fans sang ‘are you Tottenham in disguise’ and ‘can we play you every week.’ For Arteta, the international break has probably come at a good time. His players can fly off to their respective countries and return for the October 10 home game with Leeds with this game out of their heads. Hopefully. As for Brighton, they will not have wanted this special day to ever end. Comment now