Arsenal lose for first time, Tottenham’s struggles continue

AP:

Arsenal’s Premier League title defence suffered its first setback yesterday as Brighton handed the champions a surprising 3-0 defeat at the Amex Stadium.

After opening the campaign with four straight victories, Arsenal’s heavy loss came out of nowhere. Conceding the third goal from a corner, usually one of the team’s strengths, summed up an unusually sloppy performance from Mikel Arteta’s side.

Pascal Gross and Charalampos Kostoulas scored in the first half with strikes from outside the penalty area before Chema Andres completed the victory with a back-post header from Gross’ corner.

“There are certain basics that you need to accomplish in football, especially in the Premier League, that we were very far from,” said Arteta, who described it as a “big lesson”.

“The amount of technical errors that we did, and we didn’t respect any principle of play that you have to, to get out of man-to-man situations. That put us always on the back foot.”

The victory will have been particularly satisfying for Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler, who said that “only one team tried to play football” after his side’s narrow home defeat to Arsenal last season.

Arsenal have often found Brighton a difficult opponent, with the Seagulls also the last team to hand the Gunners a defeat of this magnitude, winning 3-0 at the Emirates Stadium in May 2023.

It capped an excellent week for Brighton, who beat Coventry 5-0 in the league last weekend before rallying from two goals down to defeat Manchester United 3-2 away in the English League Cup in midweek.

“We have to have the belief to compete with the best teams in the league,” Hurzeler said.

Manchester City, the only other team to win its opening four matches, can move three points clear at the top of the standings by beating Sunderland on Sunday.

More misery for big-spending Tottenham

Despite a reported US$400 million off-season spending spree, Tottenham remain without a win after five league matches following a 3-2 home defeat to Aston Villa.

Johan Manzambi, the 20-year-old attacking midfielder who starred for Switzerland at the World Cup, made his first start for Villa and opened the scoring against the run of play in first-half stoppage time. He later set up fellow new signing Nicolas Jackson before Emi Buendia’s long-range effort in the 79th minute sealed Villa’s first league victory of the season.

Conor Gallagher and Jan Paul van Hecke grabbed late consolation goals for Spurs, their first league goals of the campaign, but Roberto De Zerbi’s side now have two draws and three defeats from five league games. Tottenham were also knocked out of the English League Cup earlier this week.

After successive 17th-place finishes in the 20-team league, Tottenham’s hierarchy oversaw a major squad rebuild during the off-season as a show of confidence in De Zerbi.

There has been little return on that investment so far, and the Italian coach is facing increasing pressure heading into the international break.

He said he did not speak to his players after the match “because I didn’t want to say anything.”

“I was very disappointed, very sad, very frustrated for the performance,” De Zerbi said, “because we can’t lose this game in this way.”

To make matters worse for Tottenham, Spain’s World Cup-winning right back Pedro Porro was forced off midway through the first half with an injury.

Wins for Newcastle and Everton

Fast starts helped Newcastle and Everton secure victories over promoted opposition.

Newcastle scored twice inside the opening seven minutes through Lewis Hall and Joe Willock to set up a 2-1 win over previously unbeaten Hull.

Thierno Barry’s 11th-minute strike proved enough for Everton to edge Ipswich 1-0.

The league’s other promoted club, Coventry, also celebrated its first win since moving up, defeating Nottingham Forest 1-0 away from home.