FOOTBALL RETURNS: Brighton host injury-hit Arsenal at the Amex

Arsenal will look to bounce back from Wednesday night’s 3-0 defeat at Manchester City as they travel to the south coast to face relegation-threatened Brighton.

The Gunners struggled throughout in Manchester and now face a real battle to qualify for the Champions League, they sit in 9th, eight points behind Chelsea, who currently occupy 4th place.

The story is very different for Brighton who are involved in a six team relegation battle, with five of the bottom six separated by just three points, underlining just how important every game is in the run-in.

Before the suspension of the Premier League, Brighton were in poor form, failing to win any of their ten games since the turn of the year in all competitions, so the break came at a good time for Graham Potter and his side.

Speaking in his pre-match press conference via Zoom, Potter confirmed that Jose Izquierdo is the only absentee for his side for the visit of the Gunners as they look to hit the ground running.

As for Arsenal, they will be without long-term absentee Callum Chambers (knee), while David Luiz will serve the first game of his two match ban following his sending of against Manchester City.

Fellow defender Pablo Mari has been ruled out for the remainder of the season, midfielder Granit Xhaka is being assessed after coming off early on at the Etihad, while Sokratis Papastathopoulos (knock) is also a doubt.

Potter hopeful the break has done is side good:

“We know results haven’t been what we’d like, but we have only lost three games in that time [since the start of 2020]so the margins have been quite small, Potter told the club website.

“That’s just the nature of the competition in the Premier League, it’s not easy to win matches in this division – that’s a fact.

“But we know if we play well, do the things we are good at, stick together and fight then we’ve got a chance and we’ll do our best to do that.”

Arteta on the opportunity to respond straight away:

“Yes, every time you lose a football game you want a revenge straight away. That’s what we want, myself, the staff and the players, Arteta said when speaking to the club website.

“We need to see how many players we have fit for the game because it was a big hit losing three players in key areas which, at the moment, we are very short in. But we have to adapt.

“We’re going to have a lot of games, we’re going to be playing every three days with the schedule the Premier League has given us today so it’s going to be a challenge.”

Last encounter

In the previous meeting between the two, Brighton secured a surprising 2-1 win at the Emirates thanks to goals from Adam Webster and Neal Maupay with ten minutes to go.

Alexandre Lacazette responded to Webster’s opener, only for Arsenal’s defence to cost them again and hand the Seagulls a famous win in December.