We look ahead to Saturday’s Premier League game at the Emirates Stadium with our Arsenal vs Brighton prediction and preview. Will Mikel Arteta’s side make it three wins from three?
Arsenal vs Brighton Stats: The Key Insights
- Arsenal are the strong favourites against Brighton, winning 66.5% of the Opta supercomputer’s pre-match simulations.
- Brighton failed to win any of their seven league away games against London sides last season, drawing three and losing four.
- Bukayo Saka could become the first Arsenal player since Thierry Henry in 2004-05 to assist a goal in the first three games of a Premier League season.
Arsenal welcome fellow high-flyers Brighton to the Emirates Stadium for Saturday’s early kick-off as the pair aim to continue their perfect starts to the Premier League season.
Mikel Arteta’s side overcame Wolves on the opening day before securing an impressive 2-0 victory at Aston Villa last Saturday thanks to goals from Leandro Trossard and Thomas Partey.
Victory here would mark the second time Arsenal have won their opening three Premier League games under Arteta (also 2022-23). That would also be as many times as they did so prior to his arrival as manager, managing to do so in 2003-04 and 2004-05 under Arsène Wenger.
Their strong start to this campaign comes as no surprise, though, having fallen agonisingly short in their title tussle with Manchester City last season. Including 2023-24, Arsenal have won each of their last eight league games since a 2-0 home defeat to Aston Villa in April.
Arteta will know his team must be near-perfect again to overthrow or even keep pace with Pep Guardiola’s four-in-a-row champions. A ninth-straight victory against an exciting Brighton would lay down another early marker, following on from last week’s triumph at Villa Park.
However, Arsenal have not won nine in a row in the Premier League since a run between January and March 2004, en route to their unbeaten ‘Invincibles’ campaign under Wenger that brought top-flight glory.
Not since that campaign have Arsenal lifted the title, yet it is clear Arteta’s men are getting closer in their attempts to topple Guardiola’s City thanks to the presence of numerous world-class talents delivering on a regular basis.
Chief among them is Bukayo Saka, who’s been involved in 17 goals in his last 19 Premier League appearances (12 goals, 5 assists), including a goal and two assists in the first two games in 2024-25. The England winger will be aiming to become the first Arsenal player since Thierry Henry in 2004-05 to record an assist in the opening three top-flight matches.
Saka set up Kai Havertz’s headed finish and scored a trademark goal when cutting inside from the right flank in the opening-day victory over Wolves, and he’ll be hoping to repeat the dose on Saturday.
Havertz, these days leading the line for the Gunners, has also been involved in nine goals in his last eight appearances at the Emirates in the competition (6 goals, 3 assists). Perhaps a positive omen, too, is that his first home league goal for his side came against Brighton in December last year.
Yet Brighton themselves have enjoyed a promising start to the season under young head coach Fabian Hürzeler, whose squad has been further boosted by the acquisitions of Ferdi Kadioglu, and Matt O’Riley this week. The latter was, however, injured after a hefty tackle on his left ankle during Tuesday’s 4-0 EFL Cup victory over League One’s Crawley Town.
Having dispatched Everton in their league opener, Brighton snatched a last-gasp 2-1 victory over Manchester United last time out. João Pedro headed home from Simon Adingra’s cross in the 95th minute after Amad Diallo had earlier cancelled out Danny Welbeck’s opener at the Amex Stadium.
Veteran Welbeck has scored in 15 straight Premier League campaigns, bringing up his 100th league goal in that United win, and is now looking to score in three consecutive top-flight appearances for the first time since January 2014.
The last player to score in each of Brighton’s first three league games in a single campaign was Nicky Forster in 2008-09, but do not rule out another rare achievement for the evergreen Welbeck, or new boss Hürzeler.
The 31-year-old German is aiming to become the first Brighton manager to win his opening three league games in charge. Only Alan Mullery (August 1976), Jeff Wood (January 1999) and Micky Adams (April 1999) previously won their first two such matches for the Seagulls, but none of them managed a trio of victories to start.
Victorious starts to the new term are no surprise to Brighton recently, however. They have won their opening two Premier League matches in three of the last four seasons, but have not managed three straight wins to open a campaign since 2011-12 in the Championship.
As for team news, there is no change for Arteta, who remains without Gabriel Jesus, Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu due to injuries that will keep them out until mid-September. Brighton, meanwhile, will run the rule on Mats Wieffer and Brajan Gruda’s fitness, though O’Riley and Solly March are out for Saturday’s clash.
Arsenal vs Brighton Head-to-Head
Arsenal managed the league double over Brighton last season, winning this exact fixture 2-0 at the Emirates back in December thanks to goals from Jesus and Havertz.
Indeed, Saturday’s hosts have won three of their last four Premier League games against Brighton (L1), as many as they had in their first 10 against them beforehand (D3 L4).
However, Brighton have won three of their seven Premier League visits to Arsenal. They’re one of just three teams to have won more or as many visits to the Emirates as they’ve lost in the competition, along with Manchester City (W7 L6) and Swansea City (W3 L3).
That may leave Hürzeler optimistic of another victory here, yet Brighton failed to win any of their seven top-flight away games against London sides last season, drawing three and losing four.
Coincidentally, their last win in the capital was a 3-0 victory at Arsenal in May 2023, derailing Arteta’s title charge after strikes from Julio Enciso, Deniz Undav and Pervis Estupiñán.
Arsenal vs Brighton Prediction
The Opta supercomputer struggles to see anything besides a win for Arsenal, who triumphed in 66.5% of 10,000 pre-match simulations before kick-off.
Brighton have a 15.6% chance of a fourth Premier League victory away to Arsenal, with the draw more likely in 17.9% of data-led sims.
Though Brighton currently sit second in the table, they finish seventh most often (13.1%) in Opta’s season predictions. Arsenal are third but finish behind Manchester City once more in the title race in a massive 51.2% of simulations.
Arsenal vs Brighton Predicted Lineups
Arsenal: David Raya, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhães, William Saliba, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Declan Rice, Thomas Partey, Martin Ødegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka.
Brighton: Jason Steele, Joel Veltman, Lewis Dunk, Jan van Hecke, Jack Hinshelwood, Billy Gilmour, James Milner, Kaoru Mitoma, João Pedro, Yankuba Minteh, Danny Welbeck.
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.
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