Ian Wright thinks Arsenal’s draw away to Brighton ended up being a good point, particularly given a number of poor individual performances.
Arsenal struggled in their away clash with Brighton & Hove Albion over the weekend, with the hosts creating the majority of the chances and Mikel Arteta’s side only occasionally getting a foothold in the game.
There were some positives to take from the performance, notably on the defensive end. Aaron Ramsdale was solid again, keeping a clean sheet after his England call-up. Ben White and Gabriel Magalhaes seem to be building a good partnership.
But there were quite a few disappointing performances further up the field. Ian Wright suggests that in those circumstances, it was a real bonus that Arsenal even came away with a point.
“In the end, I think it’s a fantastic point for Arsenal with the way the team is, it’s a young team, it’s a good point, it’s much better than I thought it would be,” Wright said.
“I thought Aubameyang today, unfortunately, was poor, I thought Partey was poor. I thought Martin [Odegaard] didn’t play very well.
“We know what Brighton are going to do, we need to keep the ball and get the counter-attack going. We could not do that today, in the end.”
Brighton have made a strong start to the season, and it’s true that Arsenal’s inexperienced squad are going to have tests like this.
A recent piece of analysis by the CIES Football Observatory ranked Arsenal as the team with the youngest ‘average age on the pitch’ of all Premier League sides this season. With that, you inevitably get some inconsistency.
The disappointment is more in the fact that the likes of Partey and Aubameyang were as bad or worse than many of their youthful teammates. Hopefully they can respond well when Arsenal host Crystal Palace after the international break.