Arsenal suffered their first defeat of the season as they were stunned by Brighton, who put three past the champions at Amex Stadium.
On the back of fine wins over Coventry City and Manchester United, the Seagulls started the match in confident style.
The Gunners struggled to deal with the intensity shown by the hosts and Pascal Gross gave Brighton a 31st-minute lead with a shot from the edge of the box that went in off the post.
Arsenal, who had won their past nine league games and seven in all competitions at the start of this campaign, were not allowed to settle and looked uncharacteristically nervy on the ball.
They forced their best chance to equalise on a counter-attack just before half-time, but Bukayo Saka did not take the opportunity after the ball fell to him in the area following Martin Odegaard’s deflected effort.
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Just seconds after that missed opportunity, Brighton claimed their second goal as Charalampos Kostoulas was given too much space on the edge of the box to turn and fire past David Raya.
Mikel Arteta opted not to make any changes at half-time as he looked for a response from his side, but it didn’t come as Chema Andres headed in Brighton’s third 12 minutes into the second half from a Gross corner.
It was an 11th goal in the past week after five at Coventry and a 3-2 comeback success at Old Trafford to stun United in the Carabao Cup.
Defender Pascal Struijk, making his first Premier League start for Brighton since a summer arrival from Leeds, almost added a fourth from another corner, but headed wide under pressure.
Kai Havertz had a late opportunity to pull one back for Arsenal but shot straight at home keeper Bart Verbruggen when through on goal, while Matt O’Riley was denied at the other end by Raya.
The defeat left Arsenal second in the table on goal difference having played one game more than Manchester City, who host Sunderland on Sunday, while Brighton moved up to third and two points behind the leaders.
BBC
