Brighton added another point to their tally with a 1-1 draw away at Arsenal

The Seagulls had already confirmed their Premier League status without kicking a ball after Cardiff were beaten 3-1 at home to Albion's arch rivals, Crystal Palace.

The Gunners were hoping to get three points to try and secure a top-four place in the league and took the lead in the eighth minute.

This came after Nacho Monreal was fouled by Alireza Jahanbakhsh in the box, however, replays showed that the Brighton man got the ball and looked to have not made any contact with Monreal. 

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang stepped up and powerfully tucked the ball into the bottom left corner to make it 1-0.

After conceding Brighton grew into the game and in the second half were awarded a spot-kick, after Solly March got away on the counter and was pulled down by Granit Xhaka in the box.

Top goalscorer Glenn Murray, stepped up and sent Bert Leno the wrong way to make it 1-1 and bring up his 200th goal in his career.

Duffy, Dunk and Ryan solid again

Brighton will again be pleased with how well they defended as a unit in the game. But in particular, Lewis Dunk, Shane Duffy and Matthew Ryan were particularly solid again.

Both Dunk and Duffy made vital goal-line blocks and clearances to stop some shots and crosses of real quality.

You can certainly see why Duffy and Dunk won fan's player of the season and player's player of the season respectively.

Ryan made some outstanding saves to deny Aubameyang, Shkodran Mustafi and Henrik Mkhitaryan to name just a few saves.

Arsenal's top four hopes left looking very slim

The draw for Arsenal left their top four hopes looking very slim. It means they are three points eight goals worse off than Tottenham

As a result, they will have to hope to get a good win away at Burnley and hope Everton can beat Tottenham by a good margin to give them any hope of finishing in the top four. 

Arsenal's best hope of securing a Champions League spot is by winning the Europa League, but that would mean getting through the semi-final second-leg against Valencia and then beating either Chelsea or Eintracht Frankfurt in the final to do this.

If not they will have to settle for another season of Europa League football.

VAVEL Logo
About the author