Arsenal Pay Price For Declan Rice Red Card, Aston Villa Too Good For Leicester City

Arsenal's Premier League title challenge hit its first stumbling block in a 1-1 draw with Brighton after Declan Rice was sent-off on Saturday, while Aston Villa won 2-1 away at Leicester. Both Arsenal and Brighton had maximum points from their opening two games and the Gunners looked set for another victory when Kai Havertz pounced on a Lewis Dunk error to lob in the opening goal. However, the game turned just seconds into the second half when Rice controversially received the first red card of his career.

The England midfielder was deemed to have kicked the ball away as Joel Veltman shaped up to take a Brighton free-kick and was shown a second yellow card.

"I was amazed, amazed, amazed!" an outraged Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta said. "Amazed because of how inconsistent decisions can be.

"In the first half, there are two incidents and nothing happens. Then, in a non-critical area, the ball hits Declan, he turns around, he doesn't see the player coming and he touches the ball."

Brighton quickly made their man advantage count as Joao Pedro swept home the rebound after David Raya denied Yankuba Minteh.

Both sides had chances to win it as Bart Verbruggen denied Havertz and Georginio Rutter headed off target late on for the visitors.

But Arsenal had to settle for a point that could see them cede early ground in the title race.

Defending champions Manchester City can go top when the visit West Ham in Saturday's 1630GMT kick-off.

Duran delivers for Villa

Villa bounced back from their defeat to Arsenal last weekend to secure their second win in three games.

Amadou Onana stretched to turn in Jacob Ramsey's cross from a well-worked free-kick to open the scoring.

Ollie Watkins is yet to find the net this season after helping England