Arsenal strengthens the top of the English Premier League table

Receiving the push from Man City being held to a 1-1 draw by Everton in the early match, the army under Mikel Arteta entered the jubilant game at The Amex on the last evening of 2022. They even surpassed in the 2nd minute. , when Gabriel Martinelli finished smashing Levi Colwill's body, setting up Bukayo Saka's right foot to beat Robert Sanchez. After 66 seconds, this was Arsenal's earliest away goal in the Premier League since May 2013, when Theo Walcott opened fire after just 20 seconds into the net of QPR.

Two minutes later, Oleksandr Zinchenko turned to eliminate the two hosts, but the shot did not beat Sanchez in the face-to-face phase. After that, the two teams equalized, with the difference made after 39 minutes. From the corner on the right, Billy Gilmour headed the ball to help Martin Odegaard cross up from the second line to volley diagonally, put Sanchez on hold.

In the second half, Arsenal continued to score when two minutes had passed. Martinelli's narrow shot failed to beat the Brighton keeper, but Ed Nketiah had his face kicked into the empty goal, making it 3-0. Nketiah made good use of the opportunity to start for Gabriel Jesus with a knee injury, when he scored twice in the last two matches.

65 minutes, Pascal Gross poked a slot to let Mitoma put the right foot to shorten the gap. But six minutes later, Martinelli sped from home, picked up Odegaard's pass, penetrated the penalty area and then shot down Sanchez, re-establishing the three-goal lead. Subsequent efforts only helped the host score another goal thanks to Ferguson.

However, near the end of the second half, Arsenal sagged and experienced heart-pounding minutes. In the 77th minute, from Lewis Dunk's cross, center-back William Saliba handled the error to help the substitute striker Evan Ferguson get the ball and then finish Aaron Ramsdale's needle, shortening the score to 2-4.

In the 89th minute, Ferguson caught the ball and accidentally created an assist for Mitoma Kaoru to run across the goal and then hit the Arsenal player's foot to change direction, shortening the gap to one goal. However, VAR stepped in, judged Mitoma to be offside and denied the home table.

Thanks to that, Arsenal left with a 4-2 victory, firmly at the top with 43 points, seven points more than defending champion Man City. Brighton is eighth with 24 points, equal to Chelsea. Arsenal are the fifth team in the history of the English top flight to win 43 points from the first 16 games of the season, after Tottenham (season 1960-1961), Chelsea (2005-2006), Man City (2017-2018) and Liverpool ( 2019-2020). The previous times, all four teams went straight to the championship.

In the next round on January 3, Arsenal returned to their home ground to host Newcastle - the team that is in third place, and Brighton as a guest of Everton.

Starting lineup:

Brighton: Sanchez, Lamptey, Lewis Dunk, Colwill, Estupinan, Gilmour, Gross, Solly March, Lallana, Mitoma, Trossard.

Arsenal: Randle, Ben White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Xahaka, Partai, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Nakateya.