One red card and a training ground injury and suddenly all the hype and euphoria about this Arsenal side and their summer transfer successes sits a little uneasy.
Declan Rice was already apologising to Arsenal team-mates and supporters for the costly first sending-off in his career, which inspired Brighton’s unlikely comeback, while manager Mikel Arteta was complaining about the inconsistency of a referee who dared to dismiss his most expensive recruit.
Arteta’s justifiable argument was that the consistently inconsistent referee Chris Kavanagh should have punished Brighton goalscorer Joao Pedro for a similar offence, which would have ultimately resulted in a 10-a-side match.
Many in the stadium and those watching on television felt Rice warranted some sympathy. The player himself was man enough to shoulder the blame for Arsenal’s failure to take all three points from a match they were expected, possibly needed, to win in a season in which they have targeted perfection to overhaul perennial champions Manchester City.
With only three matches played and still unbeaten, there is no cause for alarm at Arsenal going into the first international break, but this climax to Arsenal’s week feels significant when only two points denied them the title last season; especially so with City starting out of the blocks so powerfully and Erling Haaland already scoring for fun.
Rice will now be suspended when play resumes away to arch-rivals Tottenham. Their next away match after that is at City, just a few days after they face Atalanta in Italy. Those circumstances would have been almost palatable had we not learnt on the eve of this match that big summer recruit Mikel Merino, signed to partner Rice at the heart of Arteta’s team, had suffered a broken shoulder in his first training session. Rice will be back long before the Spain international. Neither will play at Tottenham.
So, maybe the significance of this match and last week will be more than two dropped points.
Arteta, as with any right-minded Arsenal manager, would not hear a word of it afterwards and insisted he had the players to cope and adapt. Rice, for his part, tried to remain upbeat though clearly distraught.
He said: “That’s my first sending-off in my career, so I want to apologise obviously to my team-mates, which I’ve done, and to the fans. When you get sent off, it’s never nice, you get a sense of guilt over you. I was lucky today my teammates really helped me out and we didn’t lose the game.
“I’ll learn from it, I really appreciate the fans’ support as always – it’s not in my nature really to get red cards, so I’ll learn from it. I’ll see where I can be better, and I’ll be back for sure.
“I’m sure this group of players, me and everyone else, we’re only going to strive towards one thing and that’s to be successful. We’ll keep going, I know it’s tough, it’s tough for me as well but we’ll be back stronger. We know we’ve got a tough set of fixtures when we are back from the internationals, we’ll be ready.”
Having been booked for a first-half foul, he saw red for ostensibly delaying Joel Veltman from taking a free-kick deep in his own half. Analysing whether or not he was right to be sent off, he added: “I think you could see in my face I was shocked.
“I’ve not sprinted back in front of him and smashed the ball away. I’ve touched the ball with the outside of my foot. Look, this is the law of the game. If you touch the ball away, even a little bit, obviously it’s a red card, after my challenge in the first half, which I fully accept was a 50-50 that I didn’t win. But the second-half one, especially with it being in the corner flag, they can’t really progress anywhere from there.
“It was tough, it was harsh, but it’s one of those things. I have to move on from it, I will be better for it and I can only praise the players for digging deep for me and the manager for pushing everyone.”
Whether or not it was a rash or strong call by embattled referee Kavanagh, Brighton made full use of the extra man as they cancelled out Kai Havertz’s first-half goal though Pedro, the player at the centre of Arteta’s ire.
The excellent David Raya made at least one more save before the end, but it was Arsenal who still should have won as they carved out scoring opportunities for Havertz and Bukayo Saka. Brighton keeper Bart Verbruggen denied them both with good saves. Haaland, however, would have lashed them both into the back of the net for City.
Arsenal: Raya 8, White 7, Saliba 6, Gabriel 6, Timber 7 (Zinchenko 80), Partey 6, Rice 5, Odegaard 6 (Martinelli 74), Saka 8, Trossard 6 (Calafiori 59), Havertz 8. Subs: Setford, Kiwior, Jorginho, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Nwaneri, Salah.
Brighton: Verbruggen 8, Hinshelwood 5, Dunk 6, Van Hecke 6, Veltman 6 (Estupinan 72), Baleba 6, Milner 5 (Ayari 17), Minteh 6 (Rutter 72), Mitoma 7 (Adingra 85), Welbeck 7 (Enciso 85), Pedro 6. Subs: Steele, Lamptey, Julio, Webster.
