The result ended Arsenal’s perfect start to the season, and their first league defeat since being crowned champions.
Seagulls head coach Fabian Hürzeler said the performance mattered more to him than the result.
“For me the performance is more important. I always try to focus on the performance instead of the result. The performance was really good from the beginning because we did the easy things right. We won our personal duels. We won the first tackle. We won the first throw and the first corner.
"We were really intense when Arsenal tried to play and we tried to stop their fluidity. Besides that, we had a good balance between controlling the game in possession and having good defensive stability.
“So I have to give a lot of praise to my players, especially after this tough week with a lot of travelling. To show this performance shows a lot of character. They should enjoy today.”
Hürzeler said the clean sheet was the foundation of the win.
“I think it’s a difficult question to answer immediately after the game because of a lot of emotions, but overall for me, the most important thing is the clean sheet. When you have a clean sheet, then we know that we are always able to score goals.”
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was left to reflect on the basics his side missed.
“Extremely disappointed, but first of all, I think we have to congratulate Brighton for the victory. I think they deserve it, I think they were the better team. And from our side there were certain basics that you need to accomplish in football, especially in the Premier League that we were very far from. In the first duel, the second ball, that put the game, especially how direct they were, in a really difficult place for us.”
Arteta said the problems were evident from the start.
“From the first throw-in you could sense it, it was so clear. We put ourselves in trouble one time, two times, three times and we need to get out of that much quicker than that. That's one of the biggest lessons that we have to take from the game today.”
Leeds are next after the international break.
“We play the fourth away game in a really short period of time. We know what it takes to win every single match and we know what it's going to take to win against Leeds when we come back.”