"This must never happen again"… Arsenal fall 0-3 to Brighton in first defeat of the season
Brighton beat Arsenal 3-0. Gross, Kostoulas and Andrés scored. It is Arsenal's first defeat of the season and their first league defeat by three goals in 3 years.
Translated from Korean with AI assistance. Read the original. Sources and original publication dates are retained.
Summary in three lines
- Arsenal lost 0-3 away at Brighton on September 19, suffering their first defeat of the season.
- Gross, Kostoulas and Andrés scored, and it is Arsenal's first league defeat by three goals since May 2023.
- Arteta blamed technical errors in their own half, while Shearer remarked, "There should have been 6 or 7 goals."
Arsenal are the reigning Premier League champions. Manager Arteta lifted the trophy in the 2025-26 season and came through 4 games unbeaten this season. That run ended in 90 minutes. In the away match at Brighton's Amex Stadium in England on September 19, Arsenal fell to a 0-3 defeat.
Gross opens the scoring in the 31st minute, and the first half ends 2-0
Brighton's official match report states that in the 31st minute, Pascal Gross scored the opening goal, and just before the end of the first half Charalampos Kostoulas added a second, so the home side led 2-0 at the break. Chema Andrés scored the third goal, and the match ended 3-0.
The records differ on the timing of the goals. Sky Sports gave Andrés's goal as the 57th minute in the top-line record, the 56th minute in the live summary, and 9 minutes into the second half in the body text. Brighton's official report specifies a cumulative 57 minutes, that is, the 12th minute of the second half.
The "since 1989" record: a comparison limited to Arsenal's title-defense seasons
The phrase "worst since 1989" omits what is being compared. The source data presented by Opta Analyst compares only "league matches in seasons when Arsenal were the previous year's top-flight champions." Within that scope, it means the biggest margin of defeat since the 0-3 loss to Everton in October 1989.
According to the Premier League's official matchweek summary, this is Arsenal's first league defeat by three goals since the 0-3 home loss to Brighton in May 2023. However, the 1989 comparison has not been rechecked against the history pages of the official website.
Arteta: "technically inaccurate"; Shearer: "6 or 7 goals" — who said what
Sky Sports reports that right after the match, manager Arteta assessed that Arsenal had been technically very inaccurate in their own half and had failed to keep to their game principles in response to the opponent's man-to-man pressing. He said, "This must not happen again, so we have to learn the lesson."
"There should have been 6 or 7 goals" is not something Arteta said. According to BBC Sport, the remark came from Alan Shearer, a BBC Radio 5 Live pundit. It is a pundit's assessment of the performance, not a statistic.
Arsenal 2nd, Brighton 3rd: the top of the table at 12 points to 10
After the defeat, the standings, based on the values shown on the Manchester City official standings table as of September 20, 2026, are as follows. Arsenal, with 4 wins and 1 loss in 5 games and 12 points, are level with Manchester City but sit 2nd because their goal difference of +4 trails City's +6. Brighton's goal difference of +11 is the highest among the top 5 teams, 7 higher than Arsenal's.
| Pos | Team | Pts | Played | GD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 12 | 4 | +6 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 12 | 5 | +4 |
| 3 | Brighton | 10 | 5 | +11 |
| 4 | Brentford | 9 | 5 | +6 |
| 5 | Everton | 9 | 5 | +3 |
What remains is the problem Arteta pointed to: responding to man-to-man pressing. Whether the turnovers in their own half and the corner-kick defending change in the next match is what to watch, and until then these 90 minutes will stand as Arsenal's first defeat of the season. It has not yet been confirmed whether the "lesson" Arteta called for will be reflected.
Frequently asked questions
Q. What was the result of Arsenal vs Brighton, and who scored?
Brighton won 3-0. Pascal Gross scored in the 31st minute of the first half, Charalampos Kostoulas just before the end of the first half, and Chema Andrés in the 12th minute of the second half (57th minute in the official record).
Q. What exactly does Arsenal's 1989 record mean?
It is a record comparing only league matches in seasons when Arsenal played as the previous year's top-flight champions. Within that scope, it means the biggest margin of defeat since the 0-3 loss to Everton in October 1989, and it is not a record covering all defending champions.
Q. What is Arteta's salary?
The figure reported by the BBC on June 2, 2026 is 10 million pounds per season. It is a reported estimate rather than an amount officially disclosed by the club, so it is hard to regard it as a confirmed current salary.
Related official sites
- Premier League official website — matchweek summaries and official standings and records
- Brighton & Hove Albion official website — the club's official match report and the original text on goal timings
- Manchester City official Premier League standings table — displayed points and goal difference for the top of the table (update time not shown)
Featured image · archive photo · not an on-site photo of the match in this article · Photo: Wikimedia Commons (James Boyes from UK), CC BY 2.0
Related reading
· Tottenham lose 2-3 to Villa… 50 losses in 141 home matches, Arsenal took 382 matches
Weports Editor · Profile · more articles