Arsenal loses for first time in Premier League title defense as Tottenham’s struggles continue

Arsenal slumped to a first loss of its Premier League title defense — and it was a heavy one at Brighton.

After four straight wins for the champions, the 3-0 defeat at Amex Stadium on Saturday came out of nowhere, and conceding the third goal from a corner — typically an area of strength for Arsenal — summed up an unusually sloppy performance from Mikel Arteta’s team.

Pascal Gross and Charalampos Kostoulas scored in the first half with shots from outside the penalty area, before Chema Andres completed the win with a header at the back post from Gross’ corner.

“There are certain basics that you need to accomplish in football, especially in the Premier League, that we were very far from,” said Arteta, who described it as a “big lesson.”

“The amount of technical errors that we did, and we didn’t respect any principle of play that you have to, to get out of man-to-man situations. That put us always on the back foot.”

The victory will have been especially sweet for Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler, who said “only one team tried to play football” after his team’s narrow home loss to Arsenal last season.

Arsenal has often struggled against Brighton, which was the last team to inflict such a heavy defeat on the Gunners in any competition — winning 3-0 at Emirates Stadium in May 2023.

It completed a brilliant week for Brighton, which beat Coventry 5-0 in the league last weekend and came from two goals down in midweek to beat Manchester United 3-2 away in the English League Cup.

“We have to have the belief to compete with the best teams in the league,” Hurzeler said.

Manchester City — the other team to win its first four games — can now move three points clear in the standings by beating Sunderland on Sunday.

More misery for big-spending Tottenham

Fresh off a $400 million summer spend, Tottenham remains without a win in five league games this season after losing 3-2 at home to Aston Villa.

Johan Manzambi, a 20-year-old attacking midfielder who starred for Switzerland at the World Cup, made his first start for Villa and scored the opening goal against the run of play in first-half-stoppage time. He set up another for fellow new signing Nicolas Jackson, before Emi Buendia’s long-range strike in the 79th sent Villa on its way to a first league win of the campaign.

Conor Gallagher and Jan Paul van Hecke grabbed late consolations for Spurs — its first league goals this season — but it is now two draws and three defeats in the league for Roberto De Zerbi’s team, which also lost in the English League Cup this week.

After back-to-back 17th-place finishes in the 20-team Premier League, Tottenham’s leadership oversaw a huge squad rebuild in the offseason in a show of confidence in De Zerbi.

There’s been no payback so far in terms of results and De Zerbi — a combustible Italian coach — is under growing pressure heading into a long international break.

He said he didn’t speak to his players after the game “because I didn’t want to say anything.”

“I was very disappointed, very sad, very frustrated for the performance,” De Zerbi said, “because we can’t lose this game in this way.”

To make matters worse for Tottenham, World Cup-winning Spain right back Pedro Porro was forced off midway through the first half with an injury.

Wins for Newcastle and Everton

Fast starts helped Newcastle and Everton claim wins over promoted teams.

Newcastle scored twice in the first seven minutes — through Lewis Hall and Joe Willock — to set up a 2-1 victory over previously unbeaten Hull.

Thierno Barry’s 11th-minute goal was enough for Everton to beat Ipswich 1-0.

The league’s other promoted club, Coventry, got a first win since coming up, beating Nottingham Forest 1-0 away.

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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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