Arsenal

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We asked for your thoughts after Wednesday's Carabao Cup game between Arsenal and Brighton.

Here are some of your replies:

Arsenal fans

Banda: Arsenal's young players stepped up impressively while Brighton seemed to run out of ideas in the final third. It wasn't the flashiest performance, but it was professional, efficient and mature. It's the kind of win that shows Arsenal's growth and their hunger for silverware this season.

Peter: It was interesting to see Arsenal's young blood. They really have a team for the future!

Alan: Max Dowman is an unbelievable talent. Yet another clean sheet.

Donpapi: At this rate, Arsenal should be able to field a full team of academy players in the near future. Arteta is doing a great job and will save the club a lot of money in the future. Long may it continue.

Irfan: It seems like this Arsenal side, regardless of who plays, cannot do anything wrong. I really hope they continue doing the same throughout the whole season and end it on a high note as well. From the looks of it, aiming for a Treble is not too unrealistic.

Brighton fans

Fran: We started off well and should've scored a couple of goals before half-time but, as is so often the case, we just didn't take our chances. Arsenal stepped it up in the second half and were the better side. We didn't really look like troubling them.

Jake: Very encouraging, particularly after the Manchester United performance at the weekend. Hurzeler has come in for some criticism, but he had the team playing well and creating clear chances. It does sadly expose the limitations of the Brighton model and, if we are to properly compete, we need to recruit proven over potential in the final third.

Graham: I'm afraid that we create chances but we just can't finish. 2-0 at half-time wouldn't have been unrealistic in my view. It's good to see Baleba playing well, which is a bonus I guess. Bring on Leeds.

Kevin: Poor finishing again. You have to give fringe players a game in the cups, otherwise they don't get game time. We move on to big game against Leeds.

Arsenal's defensive record just keeps getting better.

Following the 2-0 win over Brighton in the Carabao Cup, the Gunners are the first English top-flight team in history to play six games in a month and win them all without conceding.

Image source, PA Media

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, speaking to Sky Sports after a 2-0 win against Brighton in the Carabao Cup:

"A very special evening to be fair, very happy for various reasons.

"Obviously, we are in the quarter-finals, and we won the game against a really tough opponent. We made 10 changes, we played players that never played together, yet we made two huge debuts for Max [Dowman] and Andre [Harriman-Annous].

"That feeling of giving the opportunity to somebody and fulfilling a dream is unique, and I'm very happy that things turned out to be very positive, and we managed to win the game."

On Ethan Nwaneri scoring: "He came on the other day as well and he's going to have those chances and when he has, he needs to make the most out of it. I think he took the goal really well."

Only eight teams remain in the Carabao Cup and the draw for the quarter-finals has been made.

Holders Newcastle United, who beat Tottenham in their fourth-round tie on Wednesday, have been paired with Fulham in the last eight.

All four ties are scheduled to take place during week commencing 15 December.

• Arsenal v Crystal Palace

• Cardiff City v Chelsea

• Manchester City v Brentford

• Newcastle v Fulham

Alex Howell
Football reporter at Emirates Stadium

Image source, PA Media

Max Dowman's first start for Arsenal was further reward for his progress this season.

The 15-year-old was one of Arsenal's most dangerous players on the senior team's pre-season tour of Asia, winning penalties against Newcastle and Villarreal, and he continued that promise with another solid performance against Brighton.

The winger made his Premier League debut against Leeds at home, winning a penalty in that match, and he caused the Brighton defence problems with his dribbling throughout his 70 minutes on the pitch.

Mikel Arteta has spoken glowingly at every opportunity about Dowman's talent and said before this match he would have been "blind" to not notice it.

The youngster had to deal with some heavy tackles from the Brighton defenders but, as Arteta has said, the England youth international has an excellent temperament to not let those challenges affect him.

Dowman has agreed to sign a scholarship deal as he is not yet old enough to sign as a professional, and the sight of him skipping past defenders is something the Arsenal fans are set to enjoy for many years to come.

Whether you were at the game or following from elsewhere, we want to know what you learned.

Have your say on Arsenal's performance

What did you make of Brighton's display?

Come back on Thursday for a selection of your replies

It is a big night for Max Dowman, who becomes Arsenal's youngest ever starter at 15 years and 302 days old.

Mikel Arteta has made 10 changes for the match with Brighton, with only Eberechi Eze keeping his starting place.

Brighton also name a much-changed line-up, with Diego Gomez - the competition's leading scorer so far - among those brought into the team.

Ex-Arsenal striker Danny Welbeck is on the bench for the Seagulls.

There are five Carabao Cup games on Wednesday and BBC Sport will bring you every moment.

Kick-off times 19:45 GMT unless stated

• Arsenal v Brighton - listen on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra 2

• Liverpool v Crystal Palace - listen on BBC Radio 5 Live

• Swansea v Manchester City - listen on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra 3

• Wolves v Chelsea

• Newcastle v Tottenham (20:00) - listen on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra

Follow all of the action and reaction here

You can also listen to today's Radio 5 Live commentaries on most smart speakers. Just say "ask BBC Sounds to play Arsenal v Brighton" or "ask BBC Sounds to play Liverpool v Crystal Palace", for instance.

Find out more about how to listen to football on BBC Sounds

We asked for your views on Tony Pulis' comments about Arsenal being compared to his Stoke team and Mikel Arteta's set-piece tactics.

Here are some of your comments:

Rachel: It's great that set pieces are working for Arsenal and I love that we are so dominant in those moments. But I would also love to see more of the fast-flowing beautiful game, scoring goals for fun from gifted and technical players who enjoy being in the moment. I hope those qualities will start to surface as the season progresses.

Marc: Never in a million years would you compare any Arsenal team with a Tony Pulis team. What Arteta and his coaching staff have done is find an alternative way of winning games. When you have teams play a low block with you, what other alternative do you have? Our games against teams who want to play football is a sharp contrast to those who come to park the bus. We have some very creative players which was never a style of Mr Pulis. No comparison at all.

Martin: At the time, Arsenal played beautiful football and saw what Stoke and Bolton were doing as a regression. Thing is, beautiful football alone doesn't win you trophies, and if adopting the current tactics wins us trophies, then so be it. The key is to supplement it with flowing football when we can.

Vince: Due respect to Tony Pulis and his Stoke team, but the key difference here is that Arteta's Arsenal does both set pieces AND tiki-taka well. The ability to toggle between the two is a massive boon. If they keep being consistent, we can expect to celebrate something big come May.

Bob: It doesn't matter if we are being compared to Stoke because we are getting the wins every game without conceding. The set pieces are getting better every game and, if other people criticise it, that is because they aren't doing as well as us.

Image source, Getty images

Chief football writer Phil McNulty has been answering your questions on all things Premier League.

Eli asked: I feel there is an air of criticism around Arsenal scoring so many from set pieces, but I think it's a real skill. What are your thoughts?

Phil answered: No problem with this at all. Arsenal may not be as easy on the eye as they have been in the past, but look at the Premier League table.

They are superb at set pieces. It brings them lots of goals, and unless something has changed, the object of the exercise is to score goals.

If goals from set pieces, allied to strong defence, finally helps Arsenal to win the league then you will not find any of their fans complaining.

I saw a lot of Stoke City under Tony Pulis - who has done his first BBC Sport column on Wednesday on this very subject - and never felt the need to criticise them.

I was at Brentford on Saturday and they tormented Liverpool with long throws, but there was a lot more to their strategy than that and the same applies to lots of other teams.

Read more of Phil's Q&A here

Pat Nevin
Former footballer and presenter

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Fans were belting out one of their favourite chants on Sunday: "1-0 to the Arsenal."

Former manager George Graham was at the game, the very man who decades ago assembled a team built for that precise scoreline.

‌The winner was another set-piece, a classic 'get it in the mixer' moment straight from another bygone era. Do not, however, ignore the extremely impressive and very modern game management by the entire group - subs and all.

‌Mikel Arteta's game management has been in place for years alongside the physicality needed for that set-piece success, but you will always need flashes of brilliance at vital moments to win the Premier League. Only very few players can deliver this regularly.

Eberechi Eze's strike was one that only the elite can manufacture. The body shape he had to contort himself into might have looked simple enough, but it was a long way from the standard position for a clean ball connection. Arteta was glowing about it post-match and the goal is an example of why Eze cost £67.5m from Crystal Palace.

‌It is also why Arsenal have become clearer favourites. They now have far more creative options than previously.

Sign up to read more from Pat Nevin in his Football Extra newsletter

Laura Kirk-Francis
Fan writer

Image source, Getty Images

We are now just over a quarter of the way through the season, but the intense debate about set-pieces and long throws shows no signs of stopping.

Arsenal are still the name on everybody's lips. Saturday's narrow 1-0 win over Crystal Palace, thanks to an Eberechi Eze goal from a free-kick, has done little to quieten the voices that say this type of play is ruining the game.

But who decided a long throw-in was boring in the first place? For starters, the requirements of delivering a successful long throw are far beyond most Premier League players.

The longest throw ever recorded was 46.35m by Dave Challinor nearly 30 years ago. That's nearly five London double-decker buses in a row. A long throw requires both power and technique for it to be effective. But still, the disrespect persists.

In a similar vein, Arsenal's 11 goals from set-pieces have drawn criticism. But set-pieces only come about from playing in dangerous positions. Moreover, a good delivery from a set-piece is another highly underrated skill that the Gunners have in abundance.

Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi have both shown that they can, on demand, put in a ball to land directly on to defender Gabriel's head. This is not a skill to be sniffed at.

The most powerful aspect of these set-plays is that they are inherently repeatable.

On Saturday, as Arsenal laboured against a well-organised Crystal Palace team, there was still an air of inevitability about Mikel Arteta's team. Fans at Emirates Stadium have started cheering a free-kick or a corner with as much gusto as they would a goal itself.

Arsenal know it is coming and the opposition know it is coming, but there is nothing they can do about it. Practice makes perfect.

Find more from Laura Kirk-Francis at the Latte Firm podcast, external

Image source, Getty Images

It is brilliant that Mikel Arteta has embraced set-pieces and, like me, I don't think he will give a damn about the people who want to knock him for doing it.

Whichever club you are at, and whatever your approach, you are always going to be in a situation where there is going to be noise and criticism from outside, but if you are winning games then your supporters will be absolutely delighted about it.

We saw that from the Arsenal fans, who were singing 'set-piece again, ole ole ole' when Eberechi Eze got on the end of Declan Rice's free-kick for their winner against Crystal Palace on Sunday.

I do find it funny that 10 or 12 years ago, I was taking a lot of flak from Gunners supporters and Arsene Wenger was saying that Stoke were a rugby team because of our corner routines and long throws.

That is another reason why I have got nothing but respect for Arteta, because he has seen all of that at the time and just thought, 'you know what, doing that could help us'.

I've seen the mocked up picture of him dressed as me, external, including my baseball cap, and I love it - he makes me look good-looking!

Wenger is probably shaking his head about what Arsenal are doing but I know Arteta sees the Stoke comparisons as a compliment, and so do the other Premier League managers who are doing the same.

Wenger never seemed to appreciate the value of set-pieces, and he also found it difficult to play against teams who were direct like us, so he did everything he possibly could to affect that by complaining about people like Sam Allardyce and myself.

I can understand why he did that - it is common sense - but I don't see many managers now moaning about it, even the ones who want to play in a different way to me.

How do you feel about Arsenal being compared with Pulis' Stoke team? Do you mind Arteta's set-piece tactics if the Gunners are getting results?

Get in touch with your views here

Read more from Pulis' new column here

Image source, Getty Images

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta says he must "find a balance" in managing talented youngster Max Dowman's integration into the first team.

The 15-year-old has made two Premier League and one Carabao Cup appearances so far this season, and could feature in Wednesday's last-16 tie against Brighton.

When asked about Dowman's lack of recent first-team chances, Arteta said: "I am calm over it because what we have decided for him for the first few months is happening.

"When we have to give him games, whether it is in the youth cup, with the under-23s or with us, he has that.

"He has a lot of exposure in training with us too. We really have to manage his load.

"He is 15 years old and still growing. There are a lot of things we have to make sure are under control so he develops in the way he can do."

"He will play minutes with us, for sure. When he has the chance to do that he needs to take it.

"If we looked at his passport every day, we would never play him - simple as that. But when you look at what he does in training, you have to play him. If not, you are blind, or I'm blind.

"So it is finding a balance and an understanding - especially with the load, the things that are changing in his life, and make sure he can cope with that. So far, he has done that."

Arsenal recently reached an agreement with Dowman to sign scholarship terms, meaning he could pre-agree a professional contract when he turns 17.

"That's what we all want and I think what he wants as well. After that, it is more for Andrea [Berta] and the club," Arteta added when asked if this meant the youngster is likely to stay with the Gunners long term.

"But the feeling that I have is that he genuinely loves it here. He is a huge Arsenal supporter and his family are really happy with the way things are developing around him as well. Hopefully he will be with us for many years.

On the risk that until Downman signs a professional deal other clubs could target him, Arteta said: "I don't think about those things because everything that I hear from the player and the family has been very positive."

Melissa Edwards
BBC Sport journalist

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has been speaking to the media before Wednesday's Carabao Cup game against Brighton at Emirates Stadium (kick-off 19:45 GMT).

Here are the key lines from his news conference:

• William Saliba and Gabriel Martinelli are both ruled out, Bukayo Saka is available while Declan Rice and Riccardo Calafiori are fit for selection again after being substituted in Sunday's victory over Crystal Palace.

• When asked how Arsenal's squad depth this season might allow him to relax amongst injuries to his squad, Arteta said: "That word 'relax' in football is impossible. We're trying to manage the minutes and the loads as much as possible with such short recovery time which is a bit unusual but we are going to remain very competitive."

• The Gunners boss says they have to be "more careful" about managing the minutes of Viktor Gyokeres because they don't have as many options in the frontline but they must be able to "stay fresh and maintain the level".

• Brighton forward Danny Welbeck has scored four goals in his past four matches but Arteta hopes his run ends there: "Hopefully not tomorrow! Very happy for him. We were team-mates [at Arsenal] and the whole history of him, the good and difficult moments in his career - it's remarkable what he's doing."

• He continued: "The same with the team and Fabian [Hurzeler] and the coaches and the work they've done at the club. Fabian has something slightly different. A very well prepared team, you've seen the results against the big teams so we expect a really tough match obviously."

• On the importance of the Carabao Cup: "Today [it is] the most important one, as it is the competition for tomorrow and we haven't won it for many years. It has to start tomorrow, we have to do a great game to beat this Brighton team."

Sami Mokbel
Senior football correspondent

This is an Arsenal team being built to last.

Much has been made of their £200m-plus summer recruitment spend and its impact on transforming a squad that appeared to have made a habit of falling short into one that finally looks ready to win the biggest prizes.

They have strengthened across the field: attackers Viktor Gyokeres, Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke have - to varying degrees - made their mark.

Martin Zubimendi has earned rave reviews in central midfield, while Cristhian Mosquera has filled in very ably for first-choice central defensive pairing William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes.

Yet Arsenal's clear ploy in tying down the club's key players since the end of last season is proving just as important in their emergence as the team to beat.

Having already tied down the futures of Ethan Nwaneri, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Saliba and Magalhaes over the summer - Arsenal's efforts to sign Bukayo Saka to a new long-term contract have progressed and are advancing amid a growing expectation an agreement will be reached.

To have Saka commit to Arsenal would be as significant to the club as any of the seven summer signings.

His importance to Mikel Arteta has been underlined in recent months with his position as a key member of the team's leadership committee, while he has captained the side in the absence of Martin Odegaard numerous times already.

Of course, Arsenal's commitment to Saka is just as palpable, he's already one of the club's top earners with well-placed sources claiming he will become one of Arsenal's best-paid players when his new deal is confirmed.

Indeed, securing Saka's long-term future may prove the most crucial piece of business completed by sporting director Andrea Berta since his arrival in April.

But Saka's deal isn't the only contract renewal on the horizon.

As BBC Sport revealed earlier this month, the club have started discussions with defender Jurrien Timber with a view to extending his contract.

The Holland international has established himself as a regular for Arteta ever since recovering from a serious knee injury that ruled him out of virtually all the 2023-24 season - his first campaign at the club - and Arsenal want to reward the defender.

Similarly, it won't be too long before Arsenal turn their attentions to Declan Rice's future. The England midfielder still has over two years to run on his current deal but given his status in Arteta's team, Arsenal will want to avoid any uncertainty.

In addition to the talks with Saka and Timber - and the completed renewals of Saliba, Magalhaes, Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly - the Gunners have agreed pay increases with David Raya and Leandro Trossard over the summer months.

With all that in mind, this Arsenal team are set-up to not only win their first Premier League title in over 20 years but build a lasting legacy.

While Berta has garnered hero status with Arsenal fans for his diligent work in the transfer market, his efforts in ensuring the team has a future together is viewed just as importantly internally at the Emirates Stadium.

Arsenal now have a squad built to win now and long into the horizon.

This is your Arsenal page. If you're on the BBC Sport app, make sure you're signed in and hit the bell icon at the top of this page before selecting news notifications.

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On the latest episode of BBC Radio 5 Live's Monday Night Club, the panel discuss Arsenal's chances of winning the Premier League this season.

Former Premier League striker, Chris Sutton says he believes Arsenal will win the league comfortably, adding that summer recruit, Viktor Gyokeres, will "eventually start firing and will be a good signing."

He also suggested that Liverpool's drop off and Manchester City's reliance on Erling Haarland will help the Gunners over the line.

Watch the full episode on BBC iPlayer and listen on BBC Sounds

This is your Arsenal page. If you're on the BBC Sport app, make sure you're signed in and hit the bell icon at the top of this page before selecting news notifications.

If you're using a computer, when you're signed in hit 'follow' at the top of this page and you'll see more content about your club when you're on the site.

Alex Howell
Arsenal reporter

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It's been a near perfect start to the season for Arsenal.

The Gunners are on a 10 match unbeaten run, have not conceded a goal for five games and are four points clear at the top of the Premier League.

Mikel Arteta could not have planned for a better beginning to this campaign with the loss to Liverpool, coming from an excellent free kick from Dominik Szoboszlai, the one defeat they have suffered.

And Arteta has had some difficult fitness issues to overcome. Already this season Arsenal have been without Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and William Saliba through injury.

Havertz is the one long-term problem but Odegaard has suffered two shoulder injuries and it is hoped he will return in November after a knee issue.

Arsenal brought in eight players in the summer with the hope of increasing the quality options in the squad so that when a starter dropped out of the team, the level did not drop.

They have achieved that but it has gone better than even sporting director Andrea Berta could have hoped.

Arteta does have fresh concerns though. Declan Rice, Riccardo Calafiori and William Saliba all had to be withdrawn in the win over Crystal Palace with knocks, while Gabriel Martinelli limped down the tunnel.

Arsenal have Brighton up next in the Carabao Cup and although they have depth in the squad this year, they will hope the updates Arteta gives on the fitness of the players with knocks means they are back available as soon as possible.

Chris Collinson
BBC Sport statistician

Arsenal are top of the Premier League table after nine games and are also leading another metric in this season's top flight.

The Gunners have covered more ground than any other team in the division so far this season, narrowly ahead of Manchester City and Leeds United.

Last season, Arsenal players averaged 110.6km per game (joint-fourth most). This season, they are averaging 114.9km per game - an increase of 4.3km collectively per match.