Roberto De Zerbi makes honest admission about Brighton's performance after 'strange' defeat against Arsenal

Albion lost 4-2 but threatened to mount a miraculous comeback in the second-half with Kaoru Mitoma scoring and having another one disallowed either side of a debut goal for Evan Ferguson.

"It was a strange game,” De Zerbi said. “They scored in crucial moments. I'm upset with the result but not for the quality of play and attitude of the players.”

When asked to elaborate what he meant by ‘strange’, De Zerbi pointed to Arsenal’s first and third goals – scored right at the beginning of each half – as well as Gabriel Martinelli’s strike on the counter attack when Albion were back in the game.

De Zerbi added: “Arsenal have fantastic players with a fantastic coach. To win the Premier League, you sometimes have to be lucky. I think they scored in crucial moments.

"I think we had to find one goal in the game. [When we did], we can't suffer a goal in this moment. We have to learn and understand the different moments inside the game.

"We had a chance to score 3-2 one minute before the last goal.”

De Zerbi said he was ‘very proud’ of his players for the way they responded to going three goals down twice in the game.

"You can lose the game against Arsenal or Manchester City but you can choose the way of losing the game,” he said.

"Our fans were fantastic, watching a team with right mentality and right way to play. For this I'm really proud.

“We closed the game with a lot of very young players. When you have a lot of young players, you have to improve and understand different moments in the game.

"I can say nothing better of the players' performance.”

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