Never Change a Winning Team: Arsenal, Arteta and a Lesson Relearned the Hard Way

Bill Shankly, the Liverpool manager who built two title-winning sides at Anfield in the 1960s, once said that if you have a good side, you keep it. You pick your best XI and you back it, until something forces your hand. Arsenal went to the Amex on Saturday having won every Premier League game this season. They conceded three, generated almost nothing, and watched Viktor Gyokeres warm a bench he arguably had no business sitting on. Did Arteta pick the wrong midfield, is Gyokeres being wasted on the bench, and does Ben White’s absence hurt more than anyone wants to admit?

Pascal Gross, Charalampos Kostoulas, and Chema Andres scored for Brighton. Arsenal created one chance all afternoon, Havertz going clean through only for Bart Verbruggen to turn it aside. The scoreline, three-nil in Brighton’s favour, flattered the Gunners. The defeat drops Arsenal out of top spot on goal difference, as Manchester City are now three points clear thanks to Sunday’s Premier League thriller against Sunderland.

Did Arteta abandon what was working?

The midfield that carried Arsenal through their first four games was Odegaard, Lewis-Skelly, and Rice. It may not be glamorous, but it worked. Lewis-Skelly sat and recycled, giving Rice and Odegaard licence to press and advance. Arsenal controlled those matches through compactness and transition, with Odegaard dictating the tempo from a central but mobile position. Against Brighton, Arteta rewarded Bruno Guimaraes’ impact off the bench at Sunderland by handing him a start, pushing Odegaard higher as the ten and partnering Bruno with Rice as a double pivot.

On paper, that midfield has more quality. Bruno is elite, one of the best holding midfielders Arsenal have owned in years. But midfields are not assessed on paper, they are assessed on the space they create, the connections they establish, how they hold under pressure.

Brighton pressed Arsenal into submission for 45 minutes. The double pivot gave Fabian Hurzeler’s side the kind of narrow target they needed, and the hosts moved around them with relentless ease. Lewis-Skelly, tucked on the bench, carries a different type of defensive compactness. His absence left a gap in the triangle that Brighton found again and again. You do not break up a midfield that has just won you four consecutive games to reward a player whose best recent work came in a 15-minute substitute appearance. Not at the Amex, and certainly not against this Brighton side.

Is it finally time to start Gyokeres?

Viktor Gyokeres scored 21 goals last season. He won Arsenal the title. He went to the UCL final, played a starring role, and spent the summer at the World Cup reminding everyone what he looks like when games are on the line. He has started only the Champions League game against Napoli, and the Carabao Cup round against Ipswich. Just two games this season.

Arteta was asked about Gyokeres’ lack of minutes before the game and he said the Swedish international had played well against Napoli in the Champions League and that confidence was just about moments. Havertz, meanwhile, has started every league game, registered two goal contributions, and missed the one real chance that fell his way on Saturday.

The German is a good footballer. He presses, he links, he finds pockets. But he is not a goalscorer in the way Gyokeres is. At some point, you have to play your best striker. The international break gives Arteta three weeks to think about it. The Gunners would be expecting him to use them.

Does Ben White’s absence matter more than we admit?

Ben White and Jurrien Timber have spent the better part of two seasons trading injuries with the patience of relay runners. One goes down, the other comes back. Saturday was a Timber day, he started at right-back, and the Dutchman did not have his best afternoon. White, currently sidelined alongside William Saliba, offers something different at right-back: defensive instinct, composure under pressure, an ability to read when to hold and when to step. Timber is the more adventurous of the two and gets forward well, but against a Brighton side that exploited the flanks specifically, a more conservative right-back might have helped.

It is probably a coincidence. Losses rarely come down to one position when the team created almost nothing and the midfield spent 45 minutes being pressed into its own half. But Arsenal’s defensive record without White on Saturday is something. And for a side that prides itself on being hard to beat, his absence is a cost that only becomes visible on days like matchday 5.

Three weeks of international football now stand between Arsenal and the chance to answer any of these questions. Arteta will get the time he needs to reconsider. The hope, from an Arsenal perspective, is that he uses it to return to the eleven that won him four straight games and give his £75 million striker a reason to believe he is actually wanted. Because now, Gyokeres has given Arteta everything and received twenty-nine league minutes in return. That is a patience that even the most understanding footballer eventually runs out of.