Arteta Hails Arsenal’s “Incredible” Win Over Brighton to Top Premier League

Mikel Arteta has hailed Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Brighton to move back top of the Premier League as “an incredible performance” at the Emirates Stadium.

Second half goals from Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz proved enough for Arsenal to beat Brighton 2-0 and return to the Premier League summit, which was officially confirmed after Liverpool drew 0-0 against Manchester United in the late kick-off.

Speaking post-match to arsenal.com about the team’s performance, Arteta was delighted with his team’s display as he explained: “Outstanding, incredible. Big compliment to the team and to the players. I think we had an incredible performance against a top team.

“I think we fully deserved to win the game. I have to praise them because I know how difficult it is and what Brighton do to teams. We didn’t allow that to happen, so I’m super happy.”

Arsenal like many teams this week have had to deal with illness which according to Arteta led to a “patient” approach to the match with “… a lot of maturity and a lot of intelligence.”

Arteta’s Gunners however wasted several first half chances but the Spaniard believes that more attacks created extra confidence, as he explained: “Yes, but if we generate more, the probability of us scoring is higher. That’s the only thing we can focus on.

“We have great players who can define games and who can finish actions. Today we needed too many, especially in big spaces. We needed too many situations to kill the game – and that was the fear, especially after half-time, that it would be one of those days.

“The moment you give something to this team, they’re going to take it.”

Havertz has now scored in three of his last five league appearances with Arteta happy with how the German is growing in confidence on the pitch, with improvement in “… the intelligence he shows on the pitch, the aggression, how he works defensively, it’s top. Really good.”

Next weekend sees Arsenal visit Liverpool in a top of table clash with Arteta believing that the team are starting to click more, as he said: “I think the team is clicking because they’re experiencing more and more time together.

“When you talk about Kai or Declan, they have played more games with us now. They understand certain things much quicker. It’s easy to adapt in games because they get it.”