Martin Keown hailed ‘absolutely immense’ Gabriel after Arsenal’s win over Brighton but was more critical of ‘nervy’ Declan Rice.
Arsenal moved seven points clear at the highest of the Premier League with a 1-0 win at Brighton on Wednesday night.
The Gunners took the lead on nine minutes through Bukayo Saka’s deflected strike and produced one other superb defensive display to frustrate Brighton.
It turned out to be an excellent evening for Arsenal who not only picked up one other crucial win but saw title rivals Manchester City drop points at home to Nottingham Forest.
Keown says those two results have made Arsenal ‘huge favourites’ to win their first Premier League title in 22 years.
‘It’s a massively significant night within the title race,’ Keown said on TNT Sports. ‘ that now, Arsenal have turn into huge favourites.
‘But there’s hardly anything in it. Every game is really tough, it’s going to go right to the wire. Don’t get carried away.
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‘That was a great step in the fitting direction but it’s just one game. It will possibly quickly disappear so that you concentrate on the subsequent match.’
Arsenal were without influential defender William Saliba at Brighton but an excellent performance from Gabriel helped the Gunners keep one other clean sheet.
Keown described Gabriel as ‘absolutely immense’ and in addition praised Mikel Arteta’s second-half substitutes Kai Havertz and Riccardo Calafiori.
The Gunners legend was less praiseworthy of Declan Rice, arguably Arsenal’s best player this season, and said it was an uncharacteristically ‘nervy’ display from the England midfielder.
‘It was tortuous to look at at times but Gabriel’s performance on the back was absolutely immense,’ Keown added.
‘It was tense but you’ve got to maintain going, Havertz got here off the bench and gave a touch of sophistication to the team. Calafiori as well gave Arsenal higher balance within the second half.
‘It was bit nervy at times from Declan Rice but boy that’s an unbelievable result for Arsenal.’
The Premier League leaders only had two shots on the right track against Brighton and just over 40% possession.
Ex-England goalkeeper Rob Green said Arsenal ‘played badly’ but ‘won’t care’ as they took one other step towards Premier League glory.
‘Arsenal can keep playing badly and winning all they like,’ he said on BBC Radio 5 Live. ‘It’s the others which are faltering.
‘Manchester City are faltering. And you simply take a look at this Arsenal side and the way they go about winning games, they manage to simply grind out results and that’s all they’ve done tonight.
‘They’ve had a stroke of fine fortune. There’s not one player that may turn around and say that they had a very good game, except possibly Hincapie and possibly one or two others defensively. They don’t care, they won.’
While Arsenal move seven points clear at the highest of the Premier League, Brighton drop one place to twelfth.
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