With Arsenal knowing that a win at St. Mary’s would send us to the top of the Premier League table and with five days since the last game against Man City, I would have thought that the Gunners would have started fast and put a struggling Southampton team under big pressure from the off.
It was the other way round though, with the home team reacting to thre public criticism from Ronald Koeman and Arsenal looking like we were not ready for it. Perhaps it was the pressure to go top or a bit of complacency after the recent run of results, but we just could not get it going in the first half.
Mertesacker was looking defensively suspect and most of us the team were a bit sloppy in possession. We failewd to match their effort and our usual fluency and energy was missing. Having said all that we were a bit unlucky because it was a wonder goal that put us behind at the break, although Mertesacker’s clearing header in thre build up left a lot to be desired.
We had also got away with a few moments when the Saints could have added to their lead but at least Arsene Wenger still had the chance to turn things round in the second half. Whatever the boss said had no effect whatsoever though, and with 20 minutes to go we were 3-0 behind and had not looked like scoring ourseleves.
There was cause for complaint on all three goals, with a slight offside on the first, a trip on Koscielny which the ref missed on the second and the third came from a corner which should have been a goal kick. But that is really no excuse and Arsenal were second best from start to finish.
A late fourth from Shane Long added to the misery and to be fair we deserved nothing more. Hopefully this will serve as a big wake up call because we need to bounce bavck and beat Bournemouth on Monday.
Mertesacker lack of confidence and poor performance has unsettled our whole back line
3 shots and all were offtarget
boxing day ruined.
humliated. but some of you need to take a look at yourselves
saying we need to remove manager. spend like crazy. get rid of half of first team
one game an you change ur opinion that much. wow
i am not saying that remove manager but i am really disappointed the way arsenal played today specially Mert
Mertesacker was bad but so was Koscielny today, also was Bellerin even playing?
In midfield Campbell had no support from Bellerin and looked tired as the game went along.
Ozil had no movement around him so couldn’t do a killer pass.
Flamini cannot play multiple games in a row and he looked tired.
Walcott was playing Girouds role and didn’t attempt any runs behind the defence.
Giroud was left isolated and when he did get the ball he couldn’t do much with it.
Only Ramsey and Monreal were decent in this game.
thank god we have kos and he always give his 100% today if we have one mert in the position of kos Everyone knows the scoreline.
@muffdiver
Straight up “BUZZKILL”…And that was my last bud…
Bro, I don’t even pay attention to the haterz. For them, this is holiday cheer. Guess they’re all gonna go into therapy when we win the League…
Hah, you are right. This is a justarsenal.com boo boys fantasy. Knives have been sharpened in anticipation of this.
Worst Arsenal match so far since the beginning of this season. The team looked highly jaded and no sense of urgency and energy which Arsenal team normally exhibit.
@ muff
It’s all the 15 yr old fickle plastic “fans” who don’t know shite. Reading the comments on the last page made me so pissed.
Anyway, we were piss poor not a single player was at it, I can’t believe how poor we were defensively. I think wenger should’ve rotated, the ox chambers and gab should’ve played.
We were weak and naïve. The 1st game we missed our injured 3, Wenger must BUY.
This game was really awful but those were the same 11 who won against city, I guess we couldn’t blame any player cause the whole team was awful but we have to blame the manager for the $hity tactics. Mertesacker was really great against city because we defended deep and played on the counter but today was the opposite which is the situation that mertesacker couldn’t handle. Flamini wasn’t there, giroud was useless the whole team didn’t show up today
I am not really worried about topping the league cause it will happen in two days what is really worrying is consistency cause city will be breathing down our neck with only one point difference. I hope speedy recovery to all injured players and some fresh faces on January would be perfect. This season the title is ours and it will be the best way to say goodbye to Arsene Wenger.
HumiLiation of our Lives!
@muffdiver don”t necesarily think it’s the same fans who want wenger to stay that have changed their tune, there’s been a rift between the supporters for a while now that goes beyond the minority imo. What I can sympathise with though is our inability to take advantage of being in a favourable position and this isn’t just related to this season where we’ve had multiple opportunities to go top of the league and maintain a gap between us and our rivals. When we lead the league at christmas in 2013 and after having aaron injured we didn’t reinforce in the window and the title talk went out the window is another prime example amongst a few I can remember.
Point being is although we might not have spent as much as our rivals in previous seasons we’ve still had opportunities to be in with a shout otherwise we wouldn’t have consistently finished 3rd/4th and as the seasons go by and money is being spent the conclusion is drawing towards wenger not being able to motivate our players throughout a season or concocting strategies to counter teams with gameplans designed to nullify us, or even bring in adequate replacements when necessary (kallstrom).
I believe we’re heading in the right direction as we seem to be beating the “bigger” teams more frequently but it amounts to nothing if we don’t take this golden opportunity to win the league.
even when we were 3 goaLs down……..we kept trying to walk the ball into the Net
Let’s see u walk it in then!
Wengker Lampost Merta its just an illusion not good enough yet…get GUARDILA NEXT SEASON
Seriously need to move on forward from here…if wenger cares about Ars than should hand the reins to Guardiola…the old dog has not got it in him to take us to the next stage…hey I know it hurts but just stating to the truth!
in the Arsenal Dictionary
to take “ADVANTAGE” means throwing away great opportunities or sLipping up
Leicester city are the Happiest team in the world at the moment….Thanks to Arsenal’s charitabiLity
don’t u ever mention the word “advantage” ever again
work hard and make out ur own results
really disappointed guys.
my Uncle predicted my team ll loss 3-1 but we lost 4-0.
God its so…..
just how do i face him in d morning ?
we played wt two players less today Mert nd Flamini were not just dere.
but pls Wenger Mert against Long nd Mane is asking toooooo much.
Nothing special, Arsenal as usual …
(4-0) is a disgrace, I don’t know what Wenger will say this time …
cant deny we look like bottlers.
everytime we get chance to lead table.
we blow it.
Thats a problem with us muff…we always screw up when it matters! Was planning to go easy on drinks but hey wtf its a long weekend!
Southhampton pressed the ball high Arsenal couldn’t rest on the ball there was a whole in the middle where the ball should have been past in but it didn’t happen The Arsenal were pend down they need to start learning how to get out of hard situation
Absolute woeful performance! Dreadful defending, once again loosing there bottle to go top of the table
One word for display “poor”!
One word for this display “poor”!
I could think of a few more, but they’re a bit colourful.
i’m a very ANGRY GOONER tonight…………………and my feeling is not in anyway questionable
I was once like that after every loss but now I’m fully immuned. Disappointed but use to it by now.
Your not a fan then if your immune to losing this result will ruin the next 2 days for me. How could you not be angry or upset
Not a fan!!! If you say so, I’m just not stupid enough anymore to make this affect me and my household and fortunately I’ve matured from those uncontrollable emotions. How you deal with it is totally up to you but tomorrow’s another day and they will no doubt have to make this up to the fans…
What’s the excuse today Wenger? We’re tired, jaded, unlucky. Heard them all before, ain’t buying any of them.
Title Contenders my A this is must be the 3 chance Arsenal have had to go Top and each time they bottle it. Wenger can have no excuse 4-0.
PATHETIC
MERTESACK-OUT
And Kosielny thinks he’s a midfielder lately. Lol
Thats what happens when you don’t show up. Gabe and Chambers could have changed the complexion of the game considerably had they been put on at halftime…AW gotta stop relying on Mert. dude just is not fit enough to handle the pace of fast forwards…
Come Mon. Eddie Howe and Co. are going to be licking their lips…
totally agree . duracell bunnies will fancy us.
this could be a difficult week comin
Hahahaha…..and yet deluded folks(fans) keep buzzing my ears with this arsenal team/fraud manager being favourites for the league. What a huge laugh. How much more embarrassing results will certain segment of the fans continue to stomach inorder to reveal to them what fraud this manager is? Well, I guess only arsenal FC can such a ridiculous story be told.
You are pathetic. Where were you last week after the epic win?
Please slink back into whatever crevice you crawled out from and bury yourself.
everyone was happy with that win…but epic?…. we used to make fun of chelsea for parking bus…now u lot think its a sign of our greatness…city had more possession more shots more corners…and we held out … only a matter of time that a fast counter attacking team opens us up as we have no spine with flamini ramsey and mert covering the middle of the park….kos has an off day and they have a bit of luck and we are taken to the cleaners…of course all teams lose but buckling like that doesnt happen to the top teams it really doesnt….we are 6 points above a hapless man utd a team that has been written off as serious title contenders…wenger has been waffling on about cohesion of late…and he is right up to a point…but the lack of pressing and the limited quality in key positions will always derail us in the end…and that is a matter of managerial choice….the bigger worry is that at this point in the season with santi and cuquelin out for 3 months and wilshere an uncertain addition…its though to see where cohesion energy and falir are going to come from that will carry us in to april with a shouting chance….
C’mon man. How much did everyone complain for years about Arsenal not being able to win against the “big teams”? I can’t speak for anyone else, but to me this was an epic win.
Definitely were holding on towards the end but what does that matter – it was two great goals (should’ve been more) that gave us the lead against arguably our biggest title rival this season. Defensively Arsenal were sound last week, this week were terrible.
You can’t honestly tell me that the comment above from tegh7 was not supposed to be inflammatory, and minutes after a stinging loss I admit I took the bait. This is one of the “fans” that revel in games like this so they can crow about how “I have been saying all along…”.
I rarely comment when the Gunners win, I generally speak when they lose to try and counterbalance the vitriol spouted on this site after one loss.
Just like City’s performance against Stoke, this game will be forgotten soon when normal service is resumed.
the difference is that city didnt play badly against us ..if de bruyne had taken his chance..and it was easier than walcott or girouds goals… would have been a different game…this was a woeful performance by us tonight and i mean woeful…the issue is was this a one off or are there shortcoming to worry about that have been there even when we had our recent run off victories…this was not a black swan event IMO…in recent games i would say there are worrying trends… we have failed to press teams all over the park, conversion rate has still been too low and we are not commanding the middle of the park…so “normal service” is the worry IMO
There are ifs and buts in most games. Your worry is understandable and justified to some extent, I believe it’s gonna be difficult without Cazorla and Coquelin.
We are still only two points off the lead. I want to see the response against Bournemouth, if the performance is the same then I will re-evaluate my stance. For now I am ok to assume this is a slip-up that will be a blip in the greater scheme. All the best.
What annoys me most is how we deduct our GD by 4. +17 to +13? Goodness.
One of the worst matches I have ever seen to be honest. Mertesacker and Koscielny were dreadful, Cech was poor as well. The officials were bad, obvious foul for one goal and corner given that led to a goal. None of our players showed any passion whatsoever and we deserved the 4 goal loss; nice wakeup call for us before Leicester and Man City now duke it out and we have Bournemouth.
From where i stand on this performance “we never showed up”!
Never saw this coming. Defense was poor but can’t criticise them as it was the first time in 2015 that arsenal conceded 3 goals in a premier league game and the year is now about to end. One thing that is worrying me is oxlade chamberlain. His progress has stopped completely because of injuries, lack of match awareness and his refusal to learn. He has cost us many goals with his play and on the attacking front he doesn’t add anything other than taking a defender one on one and then losing the ball or delivering a poor ball. Look at Joel Campbell. He has overtaken ox in just 2 months and does everything better than ox. Maybe it’s time to send him in loan or sell him because I don’t see him improving and it’s been his 4th year at the club.
To be honest i love my club , however yes this is our best chance for years for the PL, but in my heart this performance is expected, if not today then another day but we are short, the fans see it, ex players see it. what i cannot stand is lies which is what we keep getting, in the summer Wenger kept repeating, if we can find better than what we have we will try to buy, yet now i keep hearing we’ve agreed to sign Elneney for 5m, is he better than santi,ramsey le coq, lets hope its just another shitty rumour.
If we are serious about the PL we need 3 players, a DM, a CB and a player up top, then the top 3 will be sanchez/walcott and the new player
Seems like we hate the top spot….How many times have we missed the chance to go top?
We ain’t capitalizing on Chelsea, Manu poor form…
Well, We were poor today. Nothing worked for us…Southampton turned up…Pressed better and closed us down. They wanted it more….
The better side won….Hopefully, we will bounce back but gutted for missing the chance yet again to go top……
We will win jack s..t. if we dont buy in this upcoming transfer window. Arsene says i have 4 world class strikers up front, world class striker he can shove up in his A. bec that sheer bs.
Mertesacker was the main problem today. Besides being so big, he is weak like a fish outside the water. He got bullied by a player who was half of his size. And whats up wtih him and running with the ball, who told him that he is good in keeping the ball? Has the ball, looks up for the other players like a fool, and then ends up passing the ball back to Cech.
Ramsey tried his hardest but he could do nothing. All players where nothing. Giroud nothing. Campbell performance was an insult to eyes. Sigh.
Spend some f. money Wenger. bec the season is long and full of terrors.
@Ks Can’t be bothered with biased bigots like you any more “Campbell insult to the eye” and blamining Giroud. Theo? Ramsey the rest of the team where pretty damn rubbish. Cambell had to cross wings when he moved to the left to cover back on the right for Theo repeatedly.Had enough, you can have you English core back and your 4th place and your unbalanced sides etc etc. Cheers NY Gooner keep up the good work.
suck a d colin
We terribly missed Sanchez and Cazorla
Walcott up front or even Iwobi would have worried the Southampton backline more. We absolutely lacked movement through the middle.
After this display, I don’t see why Mertesacker should start over Gabriel for the rest of the season
Thankfully the loss came just in time for the transfer window so we can strengthen the squad
A disgraceful performance but it’s not the end of the world….
in the Arsenal Dictionary
to take “ADVANTAGE” simply means throwing away great opportunities or sLipping up
Lol what do you do when the Saints beat you 2-0 after a dreadful performance at St. Mary’s? You go back and play even worse and get beat by twice as much the next time around. There that should do it. Lol
2-0
4-0
8-0?
It’s not beyond Arsenal mate.
Didn’t expect that to happen… Disgusting performance.
John Moss ruined the game for sure, but I don’t think it would have made a difference. Never looked like we cared to play.
Whatever, we should be able to handle bournemouth, and city vs liecester hopefully tie. We’ll be ok I think.
Hahahaha……….the ref did his Job my frnd……….if there’s anyone u should put the blame on……..there were 11 ridiculous players to choose from
Southampton played arsenal off the park in every department of the game. City won 4-1 and we lost 4-0. That’s +7 in city’s favor and the title may even be decided on gd as the league is too tight. We have to play Stoke liverpool utd city tott Everton away and things can get difficult.
GD will only work if we learn how to take ADVANTAGE of our rivals’ slips!
Chance to go top of the pile “blown”!
Personally think that was blown against Norwich and West Brom.
Wenger should not insult the fans by naming players like mertesacker as the captain. Give it away.
We cannot win the league with this team. They are so weak mentally that they cannot do it. Every time we can go top we lose the game. There was no passion at all. We should have come out of the blocks like a rocket to win. All they did was walk around, give the ball away and make mistakes. It is all mental there is no other explication.
Well at least Leicester slipped up today. That’s the only thing I can think of that’s positive….
Let’s just forget about today. Concentrate on Bournemouth
COYG
4-0 is outrageous! Whats the excuse emotive arsenal players wanting to be at home with their families at Christmas? Complacency? No leaders or winners on the pitch tonight. Wenger should be giving the team a rocket tonight whilst taking a look at himself.
A toy rocket, maybe the never got the chance to open their presents before the game. Lol
Wanyama had Ozil in his pocket
Kos had a tough time keeping long in check.
Merts was awful.
Ramsey back to his shitty self
Fans should stop mixing up quality with being on form or having great players around you to cover your ass…Merts,Flamini,Ramsey and Giroud are shit players…they might find for for 10 games or so…but fact is they are SHIT!!
Wanyama showed his quality
Lets stop putting our faith in injury prone players.
Hopefully this will make Wenger sign some quality.
Again Merts,Ramsey, Flamini and Giroud are SHIT
Embarrassing performance
Arsenal well beaten, 4 goals from 5 attempt on target. Credit to southampton they were jst the better team. Lets prove hw serious we are abt winning the league by putting this lost behind us and focus on the nxt game against Bouthmouth. COYG!
could have been 7-0
i feel sad.. hate the control my club have over my emotions
Does anyone want to win the league?
Today Arsenal were asked the question after beating City and Leicester losing. But with injuries and wengers tactics voiled by Keoman on 4 occasions now (wenger 1 – koeman 4…I believe) Arsenal are far from dominating the league like yester years, and at bare minimum; able to maybe get over the line.
It’s the fear that it’s a maybe that concerns us fans. Injuries are my frustration, and adds to the maybe.
A full squad and considering recent matches played, I would of mixed it up with Wilshire, Sanchez and Welbeck in that team: players willing to run lost causes and fighters in the middle willing to put a leg in. I’m sure most would agree. It’s not we don’t have the players (some will say after this lost ‘WE NEED A DCM’ but it’s more than that) it’s the issue we have of injuries.
So, back to the drawing board. Character is their, talent is their, desire is their, experience is their. We just need personal! January needs to bring signings. Whether they are seen as for a mix of this season or this and next so be it. I’m ok with not signing for just the next 6 months, we don’t need players to just be a starter, we need players to push the level up!!
City who today had Kompany come on and off with injury will definitely strengthen. LVG won’t be around after I saw the look in his eye after his press conference today, while Tottenham look to be apart of the party of 4, let’s see if they are the real deal!
Just to let you know, barcelona awaits us.
An 8-0 loss to Barcelona is a possibility. I hear they love stuffing their opponents over there in the La Liga.
Can’t wait
We showed a lack of energy and allowed them far too much space, not closing them down like they were closing us down. Game may have been different with Coq, but if we are going to win the PL, Wenger will need to get a decent DM in January.
Certainly one to forget.
Even so it is just one loss, admittedly a thorough pasting but still a temporary setback. Plenty of the top teams will drop points over the next three games.
Trouble is 3 points is 3 points, we don’t get more for beating the big teams.
Yes definitely no excuses.
The league is too tight this year. Everyone is throwing surprises. Today was a shock result. Southampton was getting hammered home and away and suddenly they smash title favorites 4-0. Despite the unpredictability, I think we will handle Bournemouth and Newcastle at home. We need to keep accumulating points because this time the league won’t be won at 80 points or 82 or 85 points. I guess 70s will decide the league as everyone is taking points off each other. So we must take whatever we can.
What happened today can be attributed to complacency where we thought after defeating Man City we would just run them over. This is, to me, Arsenal’s greatest weakness-underrating some teams yet all games are 3 points. Wenger needs to treat every game with equal importance. There is no reason why we should have allowed Southampton such great spaces where they punished us. We were our old selves trying to keep possession without any final product and yet by now we should have learnt that possession means nothing if you don’t take your chances. All is not yet lost. We can still turn this around after all we are still second in the table. We can win our games and go back to winning ways. We only need to regroup and come all guns blazing. This is the time when we go on a cruise and this season should not be an exception.
Ha!, ha!, ha!, ha! ha!, ha! ha!. what a rabble.
This is the most shocking ARSENAL performance since the 8-2 defeat to Man United.
The players MUST apologize to the fans and bounce back immediately
One thing everyone of you would have noted that whenever we have to win a game to be top of the league or to take advantage of a slip up by a major rival, we ALWAYS FAIL.
It is just me or Mertesacker is just walking on the pitch instead of running?How is Wenger chosing the captain of the team-the most catastrophyc player on the lot?First Arteta,now Mertesacker-can he find a better one?
And you’re a loon. I’ll tell you were I was last week: not so face-deep stuck inbetween arsene’s a*# chicks, whilst thinking the fraud of a manager and the lightweight group of players he’s bundled together, were anyway possibly title contenders. That’s were I was. You on the other hand, were enjoying the tasty phat from your mentors a*# that you have lost all orientation. Please seek counsel or better yet, dig deeper in support of your debilitating condition.
Are you done? You had your daggers out last Monday waiting for what you believed (and wished) was an Arsenal defeat to City. I’m sorry you had to wait for another week.
Gabriel should have started this match instead of mert, because of the pacey players southampton has!
Apologies, Previous comment directed at @DaveJay
@antonioro. Captains curse don’t wish for our best players to be promoted!
Get over it guys. We are not in relegation zone yet and more over we can still go top in the next game. Leicester is gonna play city, so we can still dream. To me, the people that made us lost this game is our CBs (Per and boss). They weren’t in the game right from the very beginning, Boss was so interested in playing like Pepe(fouling a player instead of getng the ball). Was really disappointed when Campbell was removed, I tot it was Ox for Flamini since we are chasing the game. Besides, flamini was a bit tired. Today we miss another oppportunity in going top, making it a total of 4X such tin has happened. Pls guys don’t srew the next one up. Bcs I no City is gonna beat Leicester. Positive From Today’s game –»We are not so invincible after all!
Don’t know why folks are singling out just Per. His partner decided to play midfield today. I really hope this is a 1 off for Cech because that was scary. Ramsey showed a typical woeful performance and Özil, Walcott, and Giroud were ghosts. Maybe it’s time to swap Campbell for the Ox, at least for the next game. Monreal was the only 1 to earn his pay today followed by Flamini. Today I really missed Santi and Alexis.
Yet another chance gone up in smoke
All the players Wenger panic-bought after the 8-2 trashing must go…
With the departure of CY Park, Andre Santos…
Per Mertesacker and Mikel Arteta from the same panic-buying period must go and they must go NOW!!!
Leicester is playing man city in their nxt fixture, we still hv a chance to top the leagues if they share the spoils or Man City wins. COYG
As soon as it became 1-0, we were in trouble because they started pressing up so we couldnt pass out. Cazorla is the one that normally does that. Even with cazorla we would’ve found it difficult to pass out. That is somethign we can’t deal with, opponenets pressing up the field.
Once again you saw mental weakness in our players. Just because you go 1-0, or even 2-0 down, you don’t give up. We pushed too early after coneding the first goal.
They just kept playing balls over the top and that caused us lots of problems. We should’ve gone deeper to cope with that even at 1-0 down. Then risk it at thelast 25 minutes by going up.
Glad I didn’t see that one. Following text commentaries was bad enough, really. Isn’t it funny how we somehow seem to keep contriving to gun our own chances down, game after game? Something’s gotta give, fellas. Something’s gotta give…
Leicester lost their game too,but they did that in style,fighting to the end.So,their fans can forgive the insuccess.Not the case for Arsenal fans witnessing a big humiliation of a team which gave up the fight from the very first minute.Shame on you (so called) Arsenal players!
what does Wenger see in Mertesacker that makes him play every time n even 90mins while a younger,faster,stronger more agile Gabriel is always warming de bench
Toaday I was warning by my wife that enough is enough.She is tired of me skipping family events because the Arsenal-mood-swinging attitude.We supossed to go to mall and see a movie,but this is the last thing I need right now after this humiliation.What should I do?
“Warned”,sorry for mistake
Ive learned to after a shocking result take myself away for a swear and sulk, get it done then try to avoid motd and distract myself anyway I can. If you struggle then you may just be supporting the wrong team or based on this season the wrong league 🙂 maybe try barca or bayern?
I have said this all season BFG is a bench player. We have a young CD and AW won’t play him? Madness. Still go again on Monday and a must win then we can get some new blood in Jan. 2 games in 3 days is madness for all the teams and this is why England don’t win the World Cup
i am still in a state of shock