This season is going to be one heck of a rollercoaster, if the first half of the season is anything to go by, after a weekend in which we find ourselves back on top after an excellent victory over Brighton yesterday lunchtime.

I say this because this time last week we were ruing our missed chances having bettered Aston Villa, yet succumbed to their early chance and goal, then had to review all of the other fixtures which pretty much showed every team around us picking up wins to drop us in to second. Today we find ourselves satisfied not only with our work over the weekend, but in the most part of the work of other teams in the league. Man United went to Anfield and got away with a point despite being battered. Man City were held to a draw by Crystal Palace at home and although Villa won, I think they got away with it a bit because of the Ben Mee red card. If you want another example of how this league is going to fluctuate each week, on Christmas Day we could very easily see Villa top when they beat Sheffield United at home next weekend and if we manage to pick up a draw at Anfield.

But for now we need to focus on yesterday and the victory at home to a very good Brighton team. I speculated in my blogs and online that I thought this would be a tough game; Brighton give teams chances, they don’t low block, but they create a ton of chances and they would create chances against us. But yesterday’s Arsenal performance was a master class in control and snuffing out an opponent. Whether or not their match on Thursday had impacted them or not I don’t know in terms of their physical shape, but Brighton didn’t get a sniff of our goal until the last 20 minutes or so. And their xG of 0.7 was mainly generated by the Pascal Gross chance that was just missed wide of our goal just before we got our second goal at the end of the game, because I’d been checking my phone and Brighton were limited to the sum total of 0.00 xG until about the 65th or 70th minute I think.

When you think about who this Brighton team are, what they have done not just this season but last season too under De Zerbi, That is phenomenal work from those Arsenal players and it is the kind of performance that will have some people saying that we are serious contenders for the title. Perhaps most already are, but I feel like all the talk, all the data analysts, have been saying that it is probably likely to be Liverpool or City. Of course I even think that is probably true, but regardless of that, this was the type of performance that makes me think “hey, if we can do this to a free-scoring Brighton, could we do it against everyone and anyone?”

It isn’t all sweetness and light though. I’ll admit to worrying about the same level of profligacy that overcame us at Villa Park last weekend and when halftime hit and we’d racked up 0.93 xg, had 15 attempts at goal with just three on target, had seen Martinelli blaze over from a very good position after Saka had got in behind with a sumptuous birthday boy beauty pass from Odegaard, I have to admit that I thought we might have “one of those days” two days in a row. Brighton had offered nothing, but that is irrelevant if you aren’t putting the ball away and we had just missed that killer bit of end product in that first half that had me worried enough.

Thankfully in the second half that killer touch did arrive and it did so not that long in to the half either. After we’d probably should have scored our effort that led to the corner we eventually scored from, I was glad to see Gabriel Jesus peel away to the back post and nod in the simplest of headers to put us up. It was one of those goals that you know you can celebrate as well; the flick on header was from the Brighton defender and Gabriel Jesus was standing in a perfectly acceptable position, so no VAR controversies in that one and that meant we could celebrate vociferously. Lovely stuff.

From there I was a little nervous that we’d get a big response from Brighton and until you get that second you are always going to be nervy, but as I already mentioned, it was probably at least another 15 minutes of the game before Brighton really started to offer any threat. I thought Ben White handled Mitoma well – especially as he was on a yellow card from quite early in the game –  and Saliba and Gabriel just mopped upany loose balls like absolute centurions. Honestly, those two are just brilliant and absolute units of footballers too. But they’re also helped massively by Declan Rice, who just excels game-after-game. He’s a brilliant screen for the defenders, he’s a ball winner, but he’s also so much more and there was one move which led to him having a shot where he picked up the ball basically near our left back slot, interchanged a couple of passes, then ran most of the length of the Brighton half. What a transformational signing he has been and his instant impact has been well recognised by all of us Arsenal fans.

Someone who hasn’t had an instant impact since signing, but who is now finding form, however, is that man Kai Havertz. He had another good game, keeps things ticking over, is always involved in our build up moves and his peeling away for his goal, followed by a very smart finish, was the sign of a player no longer thinking about this, looking haunted, or devoid of confidence. Bit of a shout out to Eddie too, who as a striker bearing down on a defender could have been forgiven for thinking he wanted to repeat his Sheffield United heroics and top corner one from 30 yards, but he absolutely made the right choice because Kai’s run was good and his finish rewarded us all too. Are we seeing the Leverkusen Kai rising to the surface suddenly? That’s his fifth goal for us this season and his third Premier League goal in five games. And their big ones too – to secure the points yesterday, the winner against Brentford and one that brought us level away to Luton. We’re nearly at the halfway stage and I think the target for most of us to think that he’d have had a good impact this season was double figures from midfield. He’s halfway there already with a couple of games to spare and let’s not forget that his start to the season wasn’t great. But he’s looking good now and if he can bag another six or seven goals in all competitions between now and the end of the season, that could be huge for us.

You could see why Arteta was so happy afterwards; this was a dominant and controlling performance where we offered the opposition little in terms of chances, and (eventually) took our own chances to secure all three points. We’ll say nothing of yet another targeted yellow card that the manager got, because we’re just fanning the media flames, so the focus has to be on an impressive Arsenal home victory again. We once again go top of the league (for now) and that means we have a solid week of feeling very happy about where we are at right now, before the unpleasantness of a trip to Anfield on Saturday.

Catch you all tomorrow.

Quick P.S. I wasn’t on the show last night, but the peeps did a Same Old Arsenal post match pod to relive the game which you can watch here if you’re interested.