We look ahead to this weekend’s Premier League action with our Arsenal vs Brighton prediction and preview for Sunday’s game at the Emirates Stadium. Can the Gunners respond to defeat their to Aston Villa last weekend?
Arsenal vs Brighton Stats: The Quick Hits
- The Opta supercomputer predicts Arsenal will overcome Brighton, with Mikel Arteta’s side winning 53.5% of data-powered simulations.
- However, Arsenal have lost their last three home games against Brighton in all competitions.
- Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka has been involved in 13 goals in his last 11 appearances at the Emirates Stadium in all competitions, scoring eight and assisting five.
Match Preview
Arsenal will be searching for a response when they host Brighton & Hove Albion for Sunday’s Premier League clash at Emirates Stadium after last weekend’s defeat at Aston Villa saw Liverpool seize a narrow advantage in the title race.
Mikel Arteta’s side trail Liverpool by a point at the top-flight summit heading into Matchday 17 after the Reds battled back from a goal down to overcome Crystal Palace 2-1. Mohamed Salah scored his 200th goal for the Anfield club in that game, before Arsenal lost 1-0 to former manager Unai Emery at Villa Park on Saturday. John McGinn’s seventh-minute strike proved the difference, although Arteta was once again aggrieved with the officials after Kai Havertz’s late equaliser was ruled out for handball.
Arteta, seemingly taking inspiration from José Mourinho’s post-match interview technique when Chelsea manager, opted “not to comment” after more VAR-fuelled debate followed Arsenal dropping off top spot in the league table, but the Gunners still sit a point clear of Villa, three ahead of fourth-placed Manchester City, six clear of Tottenham, and a full 10 points clear of Newcastle. They also secured top spot in their UEFA Champions League Group B after a 1-1 draw with PSV on Tuesday.
Arsenal remain without Jurriën Timber, Emile Smith Rowe, Thomas Partey, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Fábio Vieira for Sunday’s kick-off at Emirates Stadium, while Gabriel Martinelli may not be fit due to a virus, although Arteta can at least call upon the ever-reliant Bukayo Saka. The England winger has been involved in 13 goals in his last 11 appearances at the Emirates Stadium in all competitions, scoring eight and assisting five. The only game in which he hasn’t registered a goal involvement in this run was in a 5-0 win over Sheffield United in October.
Brighton were held to an underwhelming 1-1 draw with Burnley in their last league outing as Simon Adingra’s 77th-minute strike cancelled out Wilson Odobert’s first-half opener at Amex Stadium on Saturday. Pascal Groß, who teed up Adingra’s equaliser, has been involved in five goals in his last four Premier League appearances (1G 4A), while only former Arsenal midfielder Mesut Özil (54) can better Groß’s 40 assists in the competition among German players.
Injury issues continue to pose a problem for Brighton’s lineup, with manager De Zerbi missing Solly March, former Arsenal striker Danny Welbeck, Julio Enciso, Tariq Lamptey, Pervis Estupiñán and Ansu Fati, while Adam Webster still needs to recover from a knock to return to partner England centre-back Lewis Dunk.
Those defensive concerns may be music to the ears of Arsenal captain Martin Ødegaard, who has been involved in more Premier League goals versus Brighton (four – two goals, two assists) than against any other side. The Norwegian midfielder turns 25 on Sunday, too, and will be looking to become the first Gunner to score a birthday Premier League goal since Özil against Swansea City in October 2016.
Arsenal vs Brighton Head-to-Head
Arsenal fans may want to look away at this point given their record is concerning against Brighton, who have won their last three visits to Emirates Stadium in all competitions – only against Man City (seven between 2018 and 2023) have they lost more consecutively at their north London home.
Overall, Brighton have won four of their seven away games against Arsenal at the Emirates – it’s the highest win rate (57%) of any visiting English side at the ground since it opened in 2006.
The home team has been victorious in just two of the last 10 Premier League meetings between Arsenal and Brighton (D3 L5) – the Seagulls winning 2-1 at Amex Stadium in June 2020 and the Gunners winning 2-0 at the Emirates in May 2021.
A 3-0 defeat in this exact meeting at Emirates Stadium last season contributed to the undoing of Arsenal’s Premier League title charge, too, as Julio Enciso, Deniz Undav – now of Stuttgart – and Pervis Estupiñán scored, with a 4-2 win for Arteta’s side in the prior Amex Stadium meeting last December scant consolation for the north London club.
Recent Form
While Arteta may be perplexed by his struggles against the south-coast club, the Spaniard will take comfort from Arsenal going unbeaten in 12 home games in all competitions (W10 D2), scoring at least twice in 11 of those matches, since the 3-0 loss to Brighton in May.
Arteta’s side racked up four straight league wins – against Luton Town, Wolves, Brentford and Burnley – before the disappointing defeat at Aston Villa, although expect goals when Brighton visit on Sunday. De Zerbi’s side have scored in their last 32 Premier League games and conceded in each of their last 20. It’s their longest-ever scoring streak in their league history, while it’s their joint longest run without a clean sheet (also 20 games between September 1947 and March 1948).
A leaky defence remains a problem as Brighton have conceded first in each of their last four Premier League games, their longest such run since a run of six in February/March 2022 – although a 3-2 defeat to Chelsea was their only loss in the recent run, having come back to draw with Burnley, while defeating Nottingham Forest and Brentford.
This is in stark contrast to their opponents, with Arsenal only having fallen behind at any stage in six Premier League games this season, fewer than any other side. They’ve avoided defeat in four of those matches (W2 D2), while they’ve not lost any game in which they’ve led this season (W11 D2).
Arsenal vs Brighton Opta Player Ratings
The Opta Player Ratings are something we introduced ahead of 2023-24. For a quick primer on how they’re calculated, you can check our explainer here.
Before kick-off in this match, here are the top five performing players from both teams in the 2023-24 Premier League according to the Opta Player Ratings:
Arsenal
Declan Rice: 81.1 (out of 100)
Oleksandr Zinchenko: 80.4
Martin Ødegaard: 76.4
Ben White: 74.2
Bukayo Saka: 73.5
Brighton
Pascal Groß: 78.0 (out of 100)
Evan Ferguson: 77.2
Billy Gilmour: 73.4
Jan Paul van Hecke: 70.6
João Pedro: 69.7
These Opta Player Ratings also power our set of brand-new, free-to-play gaming experiences, which you can play on Opta Analyst all season long.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Arsenal vs Brighton Prediction
The Opta supercomputer backs Arsenal to get back to winning ways, with the Emirates Stadium hosts triumphing in 53.5% of 10,000 simulations compared to a Brighton win in just 21%.
A draw would do little to aid Arsenal’s title charge, although that occurred in 25.5% of data-powered simulations as another crucial period of festive football promises to be decisive at both ends of the league table.
Saturday’s defeat to Aston Villa saw Arsenal’s Premier League title chances drop to 14.8%. According to the same Opta model, fourth-placed Manchester City remain the favourites to defend their league trophy, doing so in 48.4% of scenarios, while Liverpool secured top-flight glory in 32.4% of the supercomputer’s simulations.
Meanwhile, Brighton’s top-six hopes sit at 31.4%, although their most likely league-table finish is seventh. They finished there in 21.7% of scenarios – one place above their current standing of eighth.
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