Gabriel Magalhães sends a defiant message to Fabian Hurzeler

Arsenal's star defender Gabriel Maglalhaes sent a clear message to Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler after his quotes about the team.

Hurzeler was the first man to criticise Arsenal for the way they played on the night, and discussed how the team plays with their 'own rules' after Brighton lost to the league leaders during the mid-week fixture.

Mikel Arteta's response was absolutely spot on, and Gabriel, being the kind of leader that he is at the club, has quickly followed suit on Friday.

Gabriel was clear about the fact that these sorts of quotes and conversations do not matter to this group, and their main focus is to win the title.

Gabriel Magalhães sends a defiant message to Fabian Hurzeler

He said: "We don’t really care about what he says. That is for the referee to decide on the pitch. If he wants to give a yellow card or not, he decides the time we take. We just have to do things the way we are doing and keep going.

“I think not every game we will be perfect. The way we defend is very important. The most important thing is the three points. Tomorrow we will see what we can do better. But today the three points were very important.

“We have to concentrate on ourselves and keep going the way we are. Now it’s three wins in a row, and of course we have to keep winning. That’s the most important thing.”

That is how a leader should respond. If people start getting to the reason why things are happening, these sorts of conversations will never end, and there will be even more pressure on the group to perform and win games than there is at the moment.

There will also be more of a spotlight on them, which is why things and comments like that are meant to be ignored as much as possible, and the focus should always be about the team's performances.

Obviously, it is clear that Arsenal were not at their best against Brighton. However, any team in the world, including Hurzeler's Brighton, would take a hard-fought, gritty win to stay at the top of the table than a loss in which the team played really well.

Those sorts of things matter a lot more when teams are in Arsenal's position, than when they are in Brighton's position, no offense to their team and their fans.

It is clear that Arsenal sometimes need those wins, and in the last few weeks, they have looked a bit shakier than usual, but you'd much rather win these games than lose, and that is all that matters to Mikel Arteta at the moment.