Bukayo Saka has thanked our supporters for their efforts to provide us with plenty of vocal encouragement during our New Year’s Eve win at Brighton & Hove Albion.
The attacker wasted little time in opening the scoring at the Amex Stadium, paving the way for a 4-2 victory that saw us extend our advantage at the top of the table to seven points and end 2022 in fine fashion.
And Bukayo was quick to heap praise on those Gooners who may miss the turning of the new year when midnight strikes, as they may still be heading back from the south coast after backing our boys.
“I want to thank the fans,” he told Arsenal.com post-match. “Even today, you can see their support and them coming out on New Year’s Eve. They’re probably not going to get home until the New Year so they might miss that and their families, but it shows that Arsenal means everything to them, and it means everything to us, so let’s just continue to keep doing this.
“I’m really happy with how we’ve performed in the first half of the season, and I just want to thank all my teammates. It’s been an amazing journey so far, and I think we just need to continue that in the new year.”
It took the England international just 66 seconds to net his sixth Premier League goal of the campaign, which was followed by further strikes from Martin Odegaard and Eddie Nketiah to put us 3-0 ahead early in the second half.
However, Brighton came back and netted twice before full-time, sandwiched between a Gabriel Martinelli effort that gave us the necessary breathing room to safely secure our first win at the home of the Seagulls since 2017.
“It was a bit of a rollercoaster!” Buyako assessed. “We got off to a fast start, scored two goals and then in the second half we conceded and the game was a bit nerve-racking, but we managed to get the win and the three points which is the most important thing to keep us top of the league.
“[Scoring quickly] makes your confidence high, and not just myself but the whole team. You could see the football that we play and it’s not easy to come here and play football like that, so we can be proud of the performance in the first half particularly.
“I think it’s important that I can try and affect my team, that’s why I’m picked - to obviously try and be the difference. But the most important thing is to win, and in both games we managed to get the three points. You can see how important it’s going to be, and it’s definitely going to be important going into the next few fixtures.”
Hear more from Buyakpo by pressing play on the video above
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