Whatever happens at Goodison Park today, Arsenal must treat the visit of Brighton as a cup final.
Even if Sean Dyche’s men crumble to a 6-0 defeat and Jesus himself descends from heaven to give his blessing to Pep Guardiola’s side, the Gunners have to approach it with the plan unchanged: win.
Keeping as close as possible to City is all we can realistically do at this moment in time and that means, whatever happens elsewhere, we have to keep pushing until the final whistle blows against Wolves in a few weeks time, however hopeless it seems.
As we have seen time and again, pressure can do funny things in football, it can make the impossible possible. But funny things don’t usually happen unless the pressure is on and, in the absence of any other willing or capable challenger, we will have to ramp up the stakes ourselves.
We can’t control what Dyche and his side will do but we can control how we go our about our business and, make no mistake, heads will need to be screwed on tight today. Under Roberto Di Zerbi, Brighton are an excellent side, tactically and technically.
Given all that Brighton have achieved over the past few seasons, it seems near miraculous that we walked away from the Amex in December with a eye-catching 4-2 win and a performance of that calibre would be timely indeed today. We were at our swashbuckling best in attack, finding gaps in the host’s defence where very few had done before.
Last week’s thrashing at the hands of Everton was something of an aberration for the Seagulls and not something I would expect to see again. All teams can have off-days and I don’t expect anything about that performance to be repeated. They will be sharper, hungrier and better prepared.
But I wonder if that match at Everton, and noting the way Brighton were dominated physically, would have given Mikel Arteta and his coaches some pause. The Gunners mixed it quite brilliantly with Newcastle last Sunday, silk and steel all over the pitch, and I wouldn’t mind betting that another dash of that would do the trick this afternoon.
Aside from the possible absence of Oleksandr Zinchenko, who suffered a calf injury last weekend, I would expect Arteta to go with the same line-up against Brighton, offering us a little more stability in the centre of the park after a wretched few weeks leading up to the clash at St James’s.
Di Zerbi is no fool, though, and adapting quickly to the strengths of the opponent has been one of the factors behind the continued success of the south coast side, despite all the disruption of losing Graham Potter mid-season. Our threats are unlikely to go unaccounted for.
That said, accounting for those threats and dealing with them are two entirely different things. If Bukayo Saka can be contained, we have Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Jesus waiting in the wings. With a few wins under our belts again too, some momentum and confidence has returned. In short, we are a handful.
Above all else, though, we can’t look beyond this game. There are no permutations other than those right in front of us. It will be a big ask but it has to be a win.
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