Arsenal's aura of champions evaporates after Brighton thrash them 3-0

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BRIGHTON & HOVE, England -- "Champions of England? You're having a laugh!" As withering chants go, the Brighton & Hove Albion fans' taunting of Arsenal was as brutal as it gets. They even compared them to Tottenham Hotspur.

But more worrying for the Gunners after their 3-0 mauling was that it was caused by two of their most formidable pillars crumbling in this Premier League clash at the Amex Stadium.

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When Mikel Arteta's team won the title last season, ending the club's 22-year wait to return to the summit of English football in the process, it was an achievement built on solid foundations. They had the best goalkeeper in the country in David Raya, a resolute defense in front of him and the best midfielder in Declan Rice. Arsenal also led the way in scoring from, and defending, set pieces.

But against Fabian Hürzeler's perennially underestimated Brighton, that all deserted them. Rice became the midfielder that was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, while that peerless set-piece dominance was exposed when Chema Andrés scored a simple header from a 55th-minute corner and Pascal Struijk headed wide moments later when he should have made it 4-0.

The word "shambles" and Arsenal have not been used together for a long time now. Arteta has seen to that by transforming the team into one of the best in the world. But they were a shambles against Brighton.

Maybe this will prove to be nothing more than a blip, a useful reminder that retaining a title is much harder than winning it in the first place. But Brighton showed that Arsenal's biggest strengths can also be weaknesses if they are tested properly, so how they react to this setback will be a significant test for Arteta and his players.

Arteta now has a three-week international break during which to ponder what went wrong at the Amex before Arsenal's next game, at home to Leeds United on Oct. 10. His biggest concern will be how to get the best out of Rice.

Tightening up at the back and rediscovering their ability to deal with corners should be straightforward enough, as that simply needs a training reset. But if Rice continues to perform as he did at the Amex, Arsenal will have a problem. He played without any kind of tactical or positional discipline, enabling Brighton to dominate the midfield.

Rice can never be questioned for his effort or commitment. He works harder than anyone else on the pitch, but he needs to remember that the best players work smart as well as work hard.

Too often, the England midfielder was chasing back or bursting forward, running out to the right or taking the ball from Raya at the back. As a consequence, he left the midfield empty. With captain Martin Ødegaard playing in an advanced midfield role and Bruno Guimarães seemingly not sure whether sit deep or break forward, Arsenal's presence in the centre of the pitch was non-existent.

Brighton are too good to have such liberties taken against them, and their midfield took full advantage. They were marshalled by the 35-year-old Germany international Pascal Gross, who opened the scoring with a shot from 20 yards on 31 minutes. Yasin Ayari and Andrés mopped up in the deep-lying roles, leaving Gross to dictate the game against one of the best midfields in Europe.

Rice is experienced enough to know that, against such an impressive opponent, there is a time to sit and a time to break forward. But if he knew, he didn't do it and Arsenal had no control.

When Charalambos Kostoulas made it 2-0 with another long-range strike just before halftime, the Greece forward was allowed too much time and space to take the shot -- because neither Rice nor Guimarães was close enough to stop him.

Brighton, despite having had 24 hours less recovery time than Arsenal after their Carabao Cup win at Manchester United on Wednesday, have pedigree for upsetting the champions. This was the third successive season in which they have defeated the team defending the title, having taken three points against Liverpool and Manchester City in the previous two campaigns. They were also the last side to score three against Arsenal in the league, having won 3-0 at the Emirates in May 2023.

So Arsenal had plenty of advance warning that this would be a potential hazard on their path to defending the title and perhaps doing so undefeated again, having done so under Arsène Wenger in 2003-04.

But the game was gone by half-time and Brighton simply kept their foot on the pedal in the second half, making it 3-0 through Andrés on 55 minutes. Had Struijk and substitute Malick Yalcouyé produced better finishing touches, Brighton would have won by an even greater margin -- and deservedly so.

This was a day to forget for Arsenal and especially Rice who was booked, and fortunate not to receive a red card, for kicking out at Yalcouyé in the dying moments of stoppage time. By that point, almost all of the Arsenal fans had headed for the exits after accepting defeat long before the final whistle.

That's an unusual place for Arsenal to be. How they react now will define their title defense.