Arsene Wenger chose to leave Alexis Sanchez and Olivier Giroud on the bench thinking, I believe, of the trip to PSG on Tuesday and assuming that we would still beat Southampton. That complacency was evident on the pitch as well and we nearly paid for it but were saved by the award of an injury time penalty that Cazorla scored to give us the points.
We were left cursing our luck when Southampton took a first half lead in this game, because not only was the award of the free kick against Nacho Monreal a very soft one, just like on the opening day defeat to Liverpool, but Petr Cech had done really well to tip it onto the bar. The ball bounced back off the keeper’s back and into the net though and even though the goal was lucky we had been asking for trouble after an awful and sluggish start.
The visitors were easily on top until then but Arsenal did then start to wake up and were back level before too long, with Koscielny producing a fantastic overhead kick after half an hour. The Gunners then looked the most likely, with Cazorla our main creative force.
The second half saw us dominate the game and create plenty of opportunities but the final ball or finish was always missing or the Saints defenders got a lst ditch block in. They also had a few chances of their own to win the game on the break, with Shane Long putting the best wide.
Giroud, Alexis Sanchez and then Iwobi all came on and tried to get the win but when Cazorla’s shot was blocked and Giroud slipped when set to head home it seemed as though it would be another disappointing day and our worst start to a Premier League season for five years.
But an arguable spot kick saved us and perhaps our bad luck on the goal was evened up. Hey we have enough bad luck so will take this win but Arsenal must get better if we are going to challenge this season.
Bob.
Wow – this is going to be a looooong year for us fans. Lucky with the penalty but i’ll take it.
Kos and Caz very good. The rest meh.
Kos and Caz either should be our captain!
Kos as the Boss (C)
Santi assistant Boss (VC)
Reverse will not be bad either, coz they both take responsibility when others are sleeping.
#COYG our season is up and running.
Don’t mind the performance mind the result the performance will improve, we are yet to find our best XI so far.
agreed santi and kos…saved our blushes.
badly needed 3 points . theyve become bit of a bogey team for us
Indeed it’s going to be a long season,Wenger is unable to instil belief in his players this won’t change,after watching Pep’s Man City I can say it without hesitation they are miles ahead of Arsenal in quality
Oh my, we so much don’t deserve these three points. I don’t even know where to start. Team does not gel yet, let’s be fair. It was pure luck we got all points today. Thanks Santi!
You’ve spoken too much truth for justarsenal fans,they want us to praise the team even when they show no desire and are lethargic,without a shadow of doubt we have zero chance of winning the league!
I praise the team. Always. But I rather praise the football we play. Wasn’t a pretty display. I take the points, thank you very much. I won’t even mind if all our games will end like that 🙂 But this is not the Arsenal I know.
Just beacause you’re being negative about your own team does not mean you’re a realist. The debutants- I was actually impressed by Mustafi – to come into that role with so little time to settle is tough. He looked much better than Kosceilny did in his early days. Perez looked more unsure of himself, the dury’s out for the moment. The team will take time to gel, but there is the potential of title winning team. It would be naive to write us off at this moment in time. But i dont expect you’re naive, just scared of being dissappointed hence your negative stance.
@Budd
In all fairness, we did keep them from scoring from the run of play. Their only goal came from a Chech own goal. So, even if we cancel out our penalty as well as their goal, we still come out on top 1-0…
I admit, not a very convincing win, but a win all they same. They count also. I’ll take it any day over a draw or loss…
Exactly. Santi. Kos. Luck. Not much else to say.
I’m athletic 24-year old and my heart can’t take this much longer.. What a finish.
Bad game but 3 points matter. The balls on Santi! Damn.
Well Perez was thrown in the deep end and you could tell. Hopefully he will come good with time.
Our problem might be that when Özil has a bad game, who’s there to challenge him? Ramsey? Santi sure but he’s bossing the CM.. We don’t have any other CAM available. Iwobi?
Well anyways, just damn.. Oh and MUSTAFI WAS A BOSS! The amount of interceptions and flooring S’hampton bit*hes, fantastic!
ozil was way off the boil
When Mustafi and Boss understands each other the way they did with per, in addition to an already settle fullbacks in Bella and Mon. Oh boy come and see rock, Messi who?
Perez had a decent debut too, I see some flashy movements and hustling.
We win the other’s way, so it is a good thing, let’s be patient we will soon start winning our way, and when that time came OMG, the rest is history.
We got lucky this was an awful performance and just typical of Arsenal,we can bring in new players but things won’t change as long as Wenger is still there with his lame tactics!
It is not necessarily Wenger, team is having one of these days. And it always happen against Southampton. I was absolutely expecting a “that day” game. Be fair, you knew we will struggle. And when you see Ozil being absent for half of the game you will know it is going to be a tough day. 3 points are nice, glad we beat them to be honest. And more importantly, we already had 3 penalties.
I put the blame on Wenger,it’s not just Southampton,it’s also Swansea,Chelsea who play the same way every season against us yet Wenger still fails to devise a plan to beat these clubs!
@Dee@ease
You and a few others, put everything down to AW, except for the wins…Typical….
The wins are never enough to win us the title,in order for a club to win the title they need to win 25 games out of the 38 game league season and I’ll tell you this that with Wenger’s tactics we’ll never muster up enough wins to win the big prize at the end of the season!
@dee@ease
Yet, he has, on more than 1 occasion…But hey. Haterz gonna hate.
Arsenal and United were the only realistic contenders for the title back then but nowadays it’ City,United,Chelsea,Arsenal,Spurs,Liverpool who all have a realistic chance so I’ll say it again with Wenger’s tactics we’ll never win the required 25 games for a league title
You’re like a stuck record mate!
Say something original or even different.
You blamed AW because players were not moving the ball quickly enough…yet he was on the sidelines gesticulating for them to speed it up…
You would be moaning if important players were injured before PSG game (huge game in our season), so therefore Giroud, Sanchez and Xhaka left out.
We were a bit lucky, but got the 3 points.
Move on.
Thank you santi. You love putting it in the middle. Happy Birthday kos. Sorry for the kick. This three points is so vital..
Ref don’t go well with Arsenal but we have had three penalties already this season. We scored two and missed one. Can’t believe this as we know we had just one home pk the whole of last season or so…
Koscielny is the best defender in the world. Please tell me otherwise.
United fans: Bailly is the bet defender ever!!
Better not be saying that after today haha. Bosscielny unmatched in EPL
Damn him and Coquelin celebrating got me pumped!
Thank You Olivier Giroud for always fighting in front of the box. We need his presence to play our possesion game.
#IBelieveInOlivierGiroud
Giroud is still the same striker who went 15 league games without scoring,he’s still the same player who in the 2014/2015 season went 9 league games without scoring so nothing has changed he’s still not good enough even though we got lucky and won a cheap penalty!
I guess winning 3 points for your team is not good enough. He didn’t score as he does not take the PK’s but he put us in a good position for next week.
You know what’s wrong with Arsenal? The stupid possession game! Look how good and how much style we had before adapting this stupid possession game! without having the players with the ability to play it right, it’s a really bad way to play. Arsenal is boring to watch just passing side ways and the other teams know how to get points out of Arsenal just sit deep and hit them on the counter.. When we don’t have possession we play much better. I don’t know when’s Arsene going to understand that we are not Barcelona and this style is shi** And doesn’t suit us!
I’ve always felt that first games after an international break are potential banana skins but man that wasn’t pretty. Still a win is a win is a win and will build confidence heading into a very busy period. The comforting part is that with the squad depth anyone who underperformed today should expect to ride the bench next game. Time to get ruthless Arsene.
mustafi did well, perez will need time .
hope arsene has his tactics hat on.
psg in few days.. 🙂
i want to see perez w alexi on his left, rather than ox,
I cant beleive what i hve just seen wow!! If we keep playing like this we will get murdered by the big teams. Man this is gona be a long season ??
The only positive is we got the three points. This game has proved that ox doesn’t deserve to be anywhere near the first 11,what is he doin in arsenal the boy needs to go on loan. Am not comfortable with coq he is so clumsy and his bigest negative his passing is not upto the level that we can depend on him so ill prefer xhaka over him. I am still fuming what is going on anyway we need to improve asap if we keep playing like this we will loss alot of games.
While I agree that Ox was not punching a hole in the sky today, Coquelin was absolutely fantastic. Him and Cazorla are the best pair of deep midfielders in EPL. See if I am wrong.
Am not saying coq is bad but am pointing out that he is a liability in our passing game. He is the best player we hve to win u balls but the question is what he does after winning that ball? That is the most important aspect which he is poor very poor. His passing is not consistent and just see us play sideways pass coz no one was driving the ball forwards from the mid
@khangunners
Seems you’ve been watching a different match dude.
Which game were you watching, must have been some other game or you have a disease called “EYESIGHT BIAS”, Coquelin was only second to KOS AND CAZORLA today
Totally agree with you Khan…but as you can see there are still “believers” in Ox..I just can’t understand that?!
Coc is clumsy as hell…no place for him in starting 11!
ok we might have been lucky but job done 3 pts on our return from the international break,the season is a long one with loads of ups&downs,twists we just need to regroup,recover and on to the next game,special mention to koss&santi!!
i think you replace ox w alexi leave perez on and you have a better outcome, strange seeing jack in a bournemouth kit,
You speak my mind.
Next time, I hope Wenger plays Alexis with Perez.
A long season ahead. I think Perez was good in his movements. It was ozil a little off today. And when ozil is off, the team is off. Santi is facing his demons. He will be better. And we know Manure is still bad.they seemed city’s bitches today. Nonetheless three points u will take.
A lot off… I’ve never seen his first-touch so poor for the entirety of a match!
I’m beginning to dislike this season already.
3 penalties already gosh!
We are now beginning to look like cheaters.
An absolutely undeserved win.
We must beginning to perform 100times better than this if we are to have any hope for this season.
And has Lucas already been infected with the no9 curse already?
God help us
The game after international break is always tricky…
3 pts playing terribly is much better than a lot of other outcomes.
Özil was crap! All that talent and no fight, he needs to take a leaf out of Coquelin and Cazorla’s book. It’s not like he’s a small guy…
I can’t take watching the Ox and Walcott anymore, they have ruined it for me and will never improve on what they are now.
Instead of saying the stadium is packed with tourists and always quiet, why don’t the players give us something to cheer about consistently for starters. I would break my leg every week if I was receiving those types of pay packages.
Perez with an assist on his debut, not bad 🙂
Not your traditional assist but it was great he kept he ball alive.
The only thing i’m happy about is those precious 3 points…
Arsenal players need to stop looking for that perfect goal everytime, especially in tight matches, get ruthless early, and just score, not always pass your way into the net.
I support Perez 100% and not judging him after just 1 match
And i hope he starts scoring and scores 2 dozen goals
The same problem last year is happening this year. Don’t see who our main goal scorer will be
Spurs look much better than us
But Wenger had the whole summer to get a prolific striker and waited until 2 weeks before the window ended to get a 28 year old with one good season under his belt
Let’s face it the PL Title will most likely be decided by guys like Aguero, Ibrahimovic, Kane, Not Giroud or Perez
Wenger keeps faith in Walcott and this is what we get
Wenger is to Blame
@Arsenal_girl
Guess you would have preferred Vardy, a 29 year old with 1 good season under his belt.
I agree. We have to relieved for the three points, of course. What irks me is that we had only 2 shots on target, just two! Shameful, I would say. Alright, our Ozil was (severely) off-colour; so it was unlikely that we would get a defence splitting pass leading to a goal. If that is the case how about shooting from outside the box from time to time. Do they not practice doing that during training? Even if occasionally you hit the stands, the threat of letting it go from some distance rather than always trying to walk the ball in (when it is not working) is too predictable and fruitless. I am thinking of Elneny when he was discouraged by Wenger from shooting from distance, I wonder if all our players have been given the same daft advice. All this sideways passing is fruitless, boring and negative. It also very hard to get a winning score. This is my view.
Nyc game but chances created shud be buried cos u dnt know wen dy myt um back to haunt u… The Ox shud beta work on his passing accuracy cos it was crap today particularly in the second half… Love Lucas runs in nd out of d box trying to set up oda players.
In English please, not this mumbo-jumbo.
Stuff of champions.
Kinda reminds of our 2013/14 season.
WIN UGLY EVEN ON A BAD DAY. JUST WIN!!!
Thanks to the lads. #COYG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wanna believe our average performance was due to the international break…
Or the Emirates stadium doesn’t wanna favour us this season…as we played better at Watford..
If our form doesn’t change soon I will be worried…I am hopeful
After watching a cracker of a game between two Manchester clubs , I had to watch us play and my god we are terrivle to watch. So much for us playing this pretty football, we’ll tell you what we just play them few and far. And add to that what the heck penalty was that given for. Even giroud was like Did he really give that a pen! . We were lucky against Leicester and today the luck reached whole new level.
It was a poor performance from Arsenal,we made soton looked like a very big club. We didn’t deserve that penalty but,if that would save us,no problem. Is it a crime for an Arsenal player to take a shot outside the penalty area? Did you just see how vocal Anfield is and their style of play,that’s what Arsenal used to be
This is one reason i hate the international break, it tends to put our players in too much of a relaxed mood, we just lacked energy in our play which took some time to get going.
I will say this also we were fortunate to win this game, easily could have been a lost, but the 3 point we will gladly take.
Mustafi seem to gradually get into the game, he is actually very similar to the Boss, Perez just need time to integate
it’s his 5th season at the club, he is 30years old, he is still poor!
WE CANT WIN THE LEAGUE WITH GIROUD AS OUR MAIN STRIKER.
we robbed Soton today,thanks to the referee and cnt play any more game like this.
Chamberlain wasn’t meant to start ahead of Alexis Sanchez
neither was Perez meant to be subbed off for a log.
A log that won a decisive penalty… that log?
the referee gifted us that penalty unjustly, we robbed Southampton and we won’t have that luck next time.
TFFT!! .. 3 points in the bag … Next! ?
@FbG
EXACTLY…
For now I’ll take the 3 points. We have plenty of time to gel as a team and Perez will only get better.
In my opinion we had a good game today.
Our opponents played 11 players at the back… it was difficult.
I m not wenger fan anymore but the guy bought some players this years..We cannot always blame him
Agree with most here who feel that was not a good performance, just lucky. Hope this is just a post Int break slump. Will need to be a lot better and display a lot more quality if we are to have a good season. On the players note. I agree Cazorla and Kos, were outstanding, Coq was pretty good today. Ozil, Walcott, and Ox were disappointing, especial Ozil. I think the two new guys, Lucas, and Must. will bed in nicely after a couple more games.
Not a bad game at all.the team played very well.coquelin is improving technically.mustafi ok.only bad note is we worsted many occaz.not bad at all.goal will come with game.
mahrez to vardy, “did we really turn down arsenal for this…”
Liverpool playing like arsenal! Three lovely goals!
It’s clear ozil sulks when his mate sanchez doesn’t play.
There is one reason I wanted city to beat mu today at all costs. Under Fergie mu had an insanely arrogant ethos of ‘we are the MU! ‘ they lost this since AF retired. They cannot be allowed to regain this especially under Mourinho. My point is we need a little piece of that arrogant belief that we are arsenal dare to beat us! At the Emirates we play with fear, is this due to the boos and recent negativity surrounding Wenger or just weak players. In the Vieira days we won the game in the tunnel bring back just a little bit of that. Cazorla and Kos have it, they exude presence
It should have been us and not these city and chelsea to compete for the title. Because of these sugar daddies chelsea and city we have just become a pretender. I would always take united over those money bags as its them who have pulled us down. As for united well sadly they will always THe MU that they have been. People still celebrate their defeat and that shows the fear they still possess.
@arsenalgirl. On your comment about strikers. Wenger has said it before he wants a share of goals throughout the players. Not a bad plan keeps us unpredictable and not overly reliant on one player. Aguero didn’t play today so debruyne and inaecheo scored.
Liverpool flying hate to say it but beautiful football. # shouldhaveboughtmane
IMHO This was wrong tactics for this game!!
We need to start our strongest 11!!
I am telling this for ages!
S’ton is a rubbish team, with our top 11 we should finish job in first half!!
And OMFG Walcott and Ox both starting AGAIN!?!!! WTF is going on?
I love Cazorla!
We all do! ?
The footballer I’ve enjoyed the most after Ronaldinho.
@waynebaker. Yes know what your saying, I think it didn’t help I grew up surrounded by heavy gold chain wearing chav nob head mu fans who strutted around in the shirt giving it the big I am that clearly knew fall about football. Annoying parasites!
Coq was a liability in this game.. His positional play is disturbing, all over the place without consistent impact… His passing is weak and reduce d teams general play.. Also as much as I want to blame Coq.. Ozil is d most culpable,creativity was almost zero for our playmaker.. Thank God for cazola, dis was a game we usually drop point.. He helped ozil In creating .. But I want to believe jet lag ND fatigue affected our game today.. No cause for alarm
Coquelin was a beast absolutely excellent what the hell were you watching
Sickens me to the core when I see ox n theo consistently playing rubbish & we have let gnabry and Campbell go bloody criminal.
Donkeys can’t control or pass the ball 2 yards absolute joke, just hoping iwobi & Alexis are thrown straight back in for Psg.
Lacklustre performance but 3 points gained that’s main thing.
Another key thing we realised is Xhaka has got to start alongside santi, don’t get me wrong Coq was okish but the boy can’t pass to save his life and for some reason drifts up the pitch quite frequently iv noticed that in every game that he’s played.
Now is that wenger instructing him or is that his own naivety? Either way he’s no use trying to attack anyway
I think us fans have got to be more positive-
If that had been Man U – weird all be saying ‘typical, played but still got the result’ as a good thing.
But when we win, were are still negative on the team. No wonder we don’t perform well at home in front of our negative fans.
I really think we fans have a roll to play-
Yes, it’s true we didn’t play great today, but we never stopped probing, and hustling. Ballerin just missed, Giroud slip, unlucky goal against us – on another day it could have been 3-0 win.
As for Man City – they were much better team than Man U – and no doubt favourites for the title. BUT we outperformed them, and beat them just a few weeks ago-
So come on – true Arsenal fans. Let’s celebrate the win – encourage the team – and push forward!!!