Saturday afternoon’s defeat at Brighton wasn’t a great game for Arsenal for a variety of reasons, not least because they broke three records with the 2-1 reverse.
The loss of goalkeeper, Bernd Leno, after a sickening knee injury will be a bitter blow to Mikel Arteta, and the manager will also have again seen at first hand the brittle mental state of some of his players.
After leading thanks to a sumptuous Nicolas Pepe finish, the visitors squandered the one goal lead with only 15 minutes left at the AMEX Stadium.
Marooned in ninth place in the Premier League and on just 40 points, the likelihood of European football at the Emirates Stadium next season is disappearing by the week.
Perhaps, when all is said and done, that may not be the worst thing to happen to the Gunners as it would give the Spaniard a season to consolidate and hopefully get the north Londoners back to where they belong.
In any event, Saturday’s defeat was the first time in five years that Arsenal had lost a 3pm kick-off per The Sun, but it wasn’t the only record broken in the 90 minutes.
They became the first team to ever lose a televised Saturday 3pm kick-off, and it was also the first time in Premier League history that Brighton had done the double over them.
Not the best day’s work.