Stood in his technical area watching his goalkeeper writhing on the deck in agony, Mikel Arteta may have been wracking his brains trying to remember if he’d walked under a ladder.
Or broken a mirror. Or if he’d crossed any black cats.
Losing Granit Xhaka and Pablo Mari against Manchester City was bad enough - but to lose Bernd Leno, arguably Arsenal’s player of the season, will have left Arteta cursing luck.
The keeper landed awkwardly on his knee after a collision with Brighton's Neal Maupay
Arsenal weren’t even three halves of football in to Project Restart, yet somehow they were three players down.