Arsenal 0-3 Brighton: Gunners’ Premier League title hopes are all over
It was beautiful while it lasted. Arsenal pushed Manchester City closer than anyone could have imagined at the start of the season but on a glorious sun-kissed May day in north London, their title dream died with a humbling defeat to a brilliant Brighton team that killed it with cleverness.
City will win their third title in succession if Arsenal do not win at Nottingham Forest on Saturday evening or if they beat Frank Lampard’s mediocre Chelsea side at the Etihad on Sunday. If they do not win it then, they will win it at Brighton the following midweek or Brentford the following weekend.
City’s 3-0 victory at Everton was their eleventh league victory in succession. It is inconceivable they will not win one of their next three. The battle between them and Arsenal has been enthralling but if City’s triumph was not a formality before this match, it is a formality now. ‘It feels like there is no hope,’ Arsenal skipper Martin Odegaard admitted after the game.
This 3-0 defeat was a sad way for Arsenal’s challenge to come to a close. They were utterly outplayed by Roberto de Zerbi’s side in front of their own fans. They looked exhausted, mentally and physically. They were outfought, and outwitted tactically. There were times – the majority of the match, actually – when Brighton toyed with them.
They raged against the dying of the light in brief moments in the closing minutes. Home-grown heroes Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson came off the bench and injected urgency and desperation into their quest for an equaliser after Julio Enciso’s 50th minute opener.
But four minutes from the end, former Brighton star Leandro Trossard tried to flick on a short pass from Aaron Ramsdale, the ball rebounded to Deniz Undav and he lobbed the ball over the Arsenal goalkeeper in a high arc and watched it bounce into the net.
The clock had ticked over into eight minutes of added time when Brighton completed Arsenal’s misery. Ramsdale pushed out a shot from Undav but it fell straight to Estupinan and he forced it back past the goalkeeper.
