29/12/2025

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MONDAY | DEC 29, 2025

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Gunners survive Arteta admits Arsenal ‘had to suffer’ in nervy win over Brighton as injuries pile up

Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard (left) celebrates scoring the opening goal with Declan Rice during yesterday’s English Premier League match against Brighton at the Emirates Stadium. – REUTERSPIC

M ANAGER Mikel Arteta claims Arsenal are in survival mode after he lost another two defenders to injury before overseeing a nervous 2-1 win against Brighton to move back to the top of the Premier League. Jurrien Timber was ruled out of yes terday’s fixture with an injury sustained on Boxing Day, while Riccardo Calafiori was forced out of the starting line-up with a problem suffered in the warm-up. Ben White and Cristhian Mosquera were both unavailable, too, as Declan Rice was deployed at the Emirates as an emergency right-back. Despite their defensive woes, Arsenal appeared in cruise control after Martin Odegaard landed his first goal of the sea son before Georginio Rutter put through his own net. However, Diego Gomez struck back on the 64th minute and David Raya was then needed to produce a fine save to allow Arsenal to take the win and pull two points clear of Manchester City. The Spain international somehow produced an incredible piece of athleti cism to tip the ball over the bar. “It was sensational,” Arteta told Sky Sports . “I had a great angle on it. That’s what we need from players, we need those performances in the key moments.” Former England captain Alan Shearer, working as a pundit for Match of the Day , described the save as “one of the best you’ll see all season”.

“The first shot they had, they scored. We all want to win so badly. We should have scored the third one and then it would have been different. We didn’t, so we had to suffer a little bit more.” Arsenal will be back in action on Wednesday (4.15am Malaysian time) when they take on third placed Aston Villa at the Emirates. Br ighton have taken just two points from a possible 15 and slipped to 12th in the table. Frustrated boss Fabian Hurzeler said: “In the first half we didn’t play a good game, but in the second half it was com pletely the opposite. “We were close to making it 2-2, we had chances and we were in the game. But in the end, we weren’t able to score. “The small margins make the differ ence, and we have to understand how important they are. “We proved in the second half (we can compete), but it is about doing it for 90 minutes. If you aren’t doing it for 45

“You see all the Arsenal players would have gone straight to Raya to thank him for it because it was a big save at such an important stage of the game,” ex Republic of Ireland midfielder Andy Reid added on BBC Radio 5 Live . It marked a third straight game where Arsenal – who have suffered a series of injuries this season – have won by a mar gin of just one goal and Arteta admitted: “At the moment we have survived six months. There’s another five and a half to go, so hopefully things will get better. “What I like is that we have a lot of issues and we’re dealing with it in an incredible way. Yesterday we lost Jurrien and today we lost Calafiori in the warm up. “You speak to Declan and tell him he needs to play there as a full-back and he said: ‘Okay, I’m up for a challenge, I’m going to do my best.’ And that attitude is great to witness. “You saw the performance he put in. That’s the spirit and that’s how much our players want it.” Arsenal had a number of chances to put the game out of Brighton’s reach, but their failure to do so led to an edgy finale. Arteta, who was able to welcome back key defender Gabriel in the second half after a near two-month absence, contin ued: “We were a big threat, but the mar gin should have been much bigger. “With the amount of situations and open chances that we generated, it should never have been 2-1. But that’s the Premier League.

minutes, then you have to be defen sively good. We absolutely have to

Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly (top) clashes with Brighton’s Mats Wieffer yesterday. – AFPPIC

improve from there and on.” – The Independent/Agencies

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