Brighton did not figure Arsenal out during the game. They arrived with the answers already written down. The warning came after seven minutes. Bruno lost the ball, Kostoulas was allowed to shoot from distance and Raya had to get a hand to it. Nothing changed. Brighton kept finding the same space until the goals eventually came. For weeks, Rice dropping into the back line and covering the right side has been praised as tactical intelligence. Hurzeler turned it into a weakness. Whenever Rice moved away from midfield, Bruno was left with too much ground to cover and Brighton had space around the edge of our box. Why does Rice keep dropping there? Partly because Arsenal want Saka to remain high and save his energy for the attack. There is nothing wrong with that when Saka is hurting the opposition, but if he is not tracking back and then wastes our biggest chance, the whole trade off becomes pointless. Raya was poor and should accept responsibility, especially for the first goal. But blaming only the goalkeeper would be lazy. Brighton’s first two goals came from outside the box because nobody closed the shooters down. Raya was the last mistake, not the first one. Then we conceded the third from a corner, with Chema completely free. So Brighton exposed us in open play, punished the empty space in midfield and then beat a team famous for set pieces from a set piece. That is not bad luck. That is a complete tactical defeat. Arteta said afterwards that Arsenal did not respect their usual principles, and he was right. But he must also accept that Hurzeler studied the system, targeted the spaces it leaves and reacted faster than him.