Arsenal players Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard, whose goals helped the league leaders beat Brighton 4-2 on New Year’s Eve, have a similar take on Brighton.

The Gunners opened up a seven point gap at the top of the Premier League but faced a scare in the second half, despite going three goals up twice in the match.

Kaoru Mitoma and Evan Ferguson both found the net, and the former had a second strike disallowed as Arsenal overcame a nervy final third of the game. Click here to see our player ratings.

Arsenal captain Ødegaard, who showed his class throughout the match and had a goal and a superb assist to his name, said it was a ‘very difficult game’.

Arsenal goal scorers Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Ødegaard, Bukayo Saka and Eddie Nketiah celebrate their team’s fourth goal against Brighton at the Amex Stadium. (Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

“This is a very difficult place to come,” he told reporters at the Amex post-match. “They play great football and make it very difficult with a lot of man-to-man situations.

“They have a lot of technical players with a lot of qualities.”

Norway international Ødegaard, 24, said Arsenal must learn to improve ‘in some moments’, adding: “We can do better as we made it a little bit too exciting at the end.

“It’s about trying to stay calm. It can always be a bit chaos when they score and even more chaos when they score another one.

“We had to stay calm and keep playing our football. I think we did well after the last goal to stay in the game. Except the goal that was cancelled, I think it was pretty controlled.”

Bukayo Saka, 21, spoke to BBC Match of the Day after the game, praising his teammates for their performance – particularly in the first-half.

He said: “We know how hard it is to come here against Brighton. For us to be able to play like that and create that many chances – and keep a clean sheet in the first half – we are really happy with that.

“In the second half, we need to do a lot better at controlling the game. We lost a bit of control. We let them score the first one and they had a bit of belief after that. We managed to get the fourth goal and killed things.”

source: https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/