Arsenal v Southampton review – Alexis grabs Gunners win

Despite the fact that Arsenal have been playing better of late and the visitors Southampton have been showing signs that their Excellent early season form was falling away, Arsene Wenger would have known that his players would really have to be on their game to win.

And that became clear early on, after the Gunners started quickly. The Saints soon got right into the game and although Danny Welbeck had an early chance that he put wide, they soon had an even better one which Martinez was relieved to see fly over the bar.

They were pressing us hard in possession and using the ball well when they had it so we knew that we were in for a tough game. It was the 25th minute when we fashioned our next decent chance, with the Ox starting and finishing the move but shooting straight at Forster.

Cazorla was looking dangerous again and a lot of our best football was coming from him, so when Schneidelin’s replacement Jack Cork had to go off after a knock from Ramsey, it gave the Spanish maestro even more encouragement to get at the away team. But you could see why they had the best defence in the Premier League and the referee seemed happy to let them keep fouling to break up play.

Arsenal were finding it hard work and chances were hard to come by. Welbeck nearly caught Forster out with an inventive back heel and brought a good save with a header just before the break, but we were not making much use of his or anyone else’s pace. It was certainly a frustrated Arsenal when the halftime whistle blew.

Things were the same if not worse after the break, with Southampton beating us in almost every challenge and growing all time in confidence while our passing game was just not working. Cazorla completely ballooned our best chance of the first 15 minutes and it looked like Wenger would need to make a change sooner rather than later to get something going. Giroud was the man he went to with the Ox coming off.

The Frenchman had had an immediate impact, producing another left foot thunderbolt to test the keeper and then finding Welbeck with one of his trademark flicks, but Forster produced an amazing instinctive save to deny our new striker. With 20 minutes to go we finally looked like we could win and the Emirates crowd responded after being worried into silence for most of the night.

It turned into a contest between Arsenal pressure against Southamton defence and counter attack. Wenger replaced Welbeck with Podolski for the last 10 minutes, and then Southampton went down to 10 with an injury after using all their subs. But their keeper was worth two players and continued to do a De Gea on us, clawing out a Giroud header I thought was in.

It did not matter in the end, when Alexis finally beat him with a great assist from Ramsey after the ref missed a clear penalty shout for us. We should have doubled our lead a minute later but that man was on hand again to deny Ramsey.

It was not pretty but at the minute results are what we need. I’ll take the win and hope we play better at Stoke on Saturday.

Tags Alexis Giroud

157 Comments

      1. stole a win when they went down to ten men….il have some of that 🙂
        poor as usual two seasons running of same .

        fourth will be tough- but we can squeeze it with theo an ozzy to come back
        where the hell were our scouts when wanyama an forster where at celtic?
        thats right in france waiting outside secondary schools for the next theirry henry

      2. unleash that guy arsene, unleash him ‘PRINCE POLDI’, Sanchez is a winner, Giroud has improved, we need wanyama.

      3. Wanyama for flamini
        Schneiderlin for ramsey/wilshere

        Victor Wanyama’s display shows what we are missing in flamini. That guy dominated that midfield. Cazorla and sanchez had to play around him to get behind them. Ramsey has been piss poor. He deserves time on the bench and rosicsky, time on the pitch.

        1. Sad part is Wanyama was available one year ago at a reasonable price and Arsenal elected to sign nobody instead.

    1. Great game from giroud and santi..who else to score a winner Alexis who is always there at the right time and right place ..!!
      Poor game from Ramsey until that assist..Martinez is really a good keeper..!
      Good game..Great win coyg!!

        1. This wenger won’t Let Martinez contest for Sczesny’s spot…..he fears sczesny would be displaced outright! ……the boy can handle this goalkeeping sh*t thoroughly

        2. For me, martinez looks a better keeper than szchenzny right now. Some of the balls he was plucking out of the air easily were the kind of balls which causes panic attacks for szchenzny.

          1. “SZCHENZNY”???? ….Boy! U totally slaughtered his name … L()L ……can’t blame you for it ……most poLish names are something else

    2. Another win without Wlishire,now drop Ramsey bring on Podlski move Oxy midfield Welbeck comes on in the 65th for either podolski or Giriud Roscicky for Oxy in 70th any bets we score more than 3 because it’s about time we do CB

    1. It was quite a long game indeed! Solid game! I’ve always rated Forster since his Celtic days. That said…
      Expecting Andre Marriner to see a hand ball when he can’t see a whole player is asking for too much.

  1. Horrible performance. How long can we go on saying “its only the 3 points that matter?”

    For 88 minutes we saw what Arsenal looks like without Sanchez but luckily he decided to be in the right place at the right time. Kudos for Ramsey too, good assist.

  2. How about Martinez though, 3 games on the bounce, three clean sheets. Looks assured and confident, he should keep his place when Szszcesny gets back.

      1. Martinez is playing extremely well, but don’t you guys think you’re getting ahead of yourselves here? It’s only been 3 games

        1. no were not. he is the best goalie in history.

          im tired on manuel neuer doing his best martinez impression every weel

        2. No because in the last three games the first save Scszesny had to make in each of those games, he probably would’ve conceded in 2 out of the 3. You can even see the confidence when Martinez came out to gather the ball today, you don’t get that with Scszesny.

          That being said Wenger will probably slot Scszesny back in because he is his favourite.

    1. @galen
      But he kept getting pissed off when the guys didn’t break quick. He wanted to initiate attack as soon as he made a save…
      Good on him.

  3. We are still looking poor… But I will take the 3 points..

    Our players have got to fix up because now all the other teams are starting to hit form…

    1. agreed. There’s a lot of dribbling and poor passes going on. It has gotten us into trouble before, not long till it happens again.

    2. At least, we didn’t look like we could easily be breached defensively. Great 6 points! Hopefully, we can keep hobbling along until a few more others get back from injury!

      1. true. Defense has stepped up especially on counters and set pieces including the Flame. Props to all of them.

    1. Just kossy back and d defence is solid why Wenger can’t buy another CD n a DM to cement d defence problem once and for all….his always waiting for Diaby to return…

  4. Thank you Ramsey, with a hard working day and a beautiful assist. Keep it up. Sanchez without a goal would have been a disappointment. I feel Ramsey saved both Arsenal and make Sanchez a hero again today.

    1. Ramsey was pss poor today apart from when we got lucky and Soton went down to 10 men.. He was poor and did nothing until then..

      I like Ramsey but he is a liability now days in this team. He has o up his game..

  5. 3rd consecutive clean sheet by 19 year old Martinez. Scezeny will be worried. Not the best and fluid performance but 3 points in the bag. Sanchez 14 in 22. Next game is stoke away which is our boggey team. Hope to win there and break the hoodoo. And best part of the match was NO INJURIES!

    1. @galen

      The people on this site are literally annoying and mentally challenged. We played a good team who played very deep and we got the win and the clean sheet. Our performances against other sides were amazing but we didn’t get the result and people complained now we get the result by winning ugly and they complain that it wasn’t a good performance. I can’t stand these people

      1. I have watched every game this year. Please list all of those “amazing” performances because I can’t recall them.

  6. Even when he plays poorly alexis gets the winner. you cant help but love this man. Also does anyone find the way that emi handles corners is similar to courtois(not saying he’s as good) but I find i’m assured at set pieces because of him. Unfortunately I cant really say the same about szces, both great keepers though.

  7. Not the best performance but this is our first win against a top side. We couldn’t say that before today.

  8. Arsenal didn’t win. Sanchez FC won

    The only time I wanted spurs to win and they lost. I guess Invincibles is still on for Chelski 🙁

    I’m glad we won but sheeesh that was a nervous one, especially for a home game.

    Anyway, 3 in a row. Lets make it 4

      1. Glad they lost. We are competing with Spurs (and others for fourth). We are not competing with Chelsea.

      1. thats not instict…thats wishful thinking.
        how did things work out with that lottery ticket? thought so….

  9. Alexis carrying our team again.
    Girioud is a super sub.
    That was hard to watch, but what a result
    GOYG!

  10. MARTINEZ should be our 1st choice now.. He just looks assured and confident… SZNY is just a joke sometimes, too much talk and nothing much to show for it..

    1. And he’s also spinning around like a ballerina at the wrong situations and slows our counter attacks every time. He’s been doing that for 3 seasons now, don’t see the point of it. PASS THE BALL FORWARD.

  11. On a serious note though, Sanchez carries our team, others around him really need to step up, hopefully when Ozil and Walcott gets back into things, they’ll all be chipping in with the goals.

  12. Did we only win because Southhamton went down to 10 men, i think so.

    We should play Poldi more as well.

      1. There was a spell where we threatened but it died down. After the injury, we had non-stop possession and a lot more space. I doubt we would have scored against 11 men. The injury was huge.

  13. Forster was an absolute beast tonight. We were unlucky not to have a couple of goals earlier in the night, credit to Soton they were good, but Arsenal were immense when Giroud came on.

    1. The first sensible comment. Just watching the review right now. Four very good chances to one for the saints. In the second half five very good arsenal chances to nil for the saints. You have some morons say arsenal were lucky to win. This is the first time to encountee people who are ant club. Normally you have fans of rival clubs hating your club not people claiming to be fans being sworn enemies of the club.

      1. I’ve said it before I can’t stand the “fans” on this site they honestly have 0 credibility and they just b*tch about anything

        1. Totally agree, that kind of ‘support’ will only have a negative long term effect. Today we were good against an inform team,and showed desire throughout. Deserved the win, and more importantly got the win. Giroud has showed his importance to the team today.

  14. I never have doubt in us getting goals in games….but my defense is bk kos is bk and did we resigned seamen (spell check)?…our defense will get us points trust me…we needed to be strong and we we’re not pretty but solid…..how many yrs have we watch arsenal play beautiful and loose…..ill take the win all day….come on arsenalllllllllllllllllll. ..fa life

    1. Rambo played the ball across the 6 yard line, it might of flicked Giroud on the way, but that’s a Rambo assist for me.

        1. OK well it’s a second assist… Either way it wasn’t selfish was it… I agree he needs to be doing better, but he did OK in that occassion.

  15. Giroud was simply awesome today. He really took the Physical fight to the Southampton. And he was heavily involved in the goal too. Well, good to see him back.

  16. Lady luck shining on Wenger. He has to thank wilshere for getting injured if not he don’t know how to put carzola as CAM, with a proper CAM our offensive look better.

    Giroud is a my super sub.

  17. Its good we won. Before the Arsene Boys Scout pounce on me, I have to congratulate us.

    Well, we did not play well. Soton seemed low on confidence and Koeman appears to have run outta gas.

    Few positives for me though:
    – Martinez look like a good 2nd choice after Ospina,
    – Giroud is a different player now, not the static one dimensional log we used to have, at least, slightly better.
    – Koscienly is helping Per again which is good for us

    1. @John Legend
      Olivier is our “targetman” And now that he has guys with pace,that can run off of him it shows in his game.
      Glad to have Kos back, but I don’t think he’s not going to last much longer. He is simply doing to much for a guy carrying an injury.

  18. I was very impressed with the former Celtic player VW. Santi is one of the best 2 way dribblers in the league. OG creates space for the players around him in the box hence the wide open Sanchez and his back heel to Welbz that their keeper got a hand on. I wish Flamini would drive into the space in front of him it would really open up our attack. Our keeper has looked really good and most of all confident in all his movement while the ball is in the air. Just a few of my observations. So glad we got the points.

    1. me neither. cos at that same time we will lose sanchez, danny and kos.

      we have never had a full strength side!

  19. Giroud made a huge difference for us and Santi was majestic towards the end. Poldi looked hungry which was good to see – and of course Alexis again doing what he does.

    Clean sheets and victories and people are still moaning? What happened to Southampton tonight is normally us, play well but lose because of bad luck; I’m all for the change.

  20. This is quite painful. We are getting points finally but our progress is really slow.

    But I’m not going to complain.

    1. u just complained

      then said your not gonna complain

      lol u must know my missus

      (this is where u say how u smashed her a hockey puck behind kfc)

  21. Giroud is a good super sub, he seems to have more impact one defences are worn out…definitely something to do with his power. Apart from that I can’t wait to have Ozil and Walcott back, please do remember we still are depleted so winning against the 3rd team is not all that bad.

    1. @No10
      Weird how all through the match, all I heard was how injury ravished this or that team were, but no mention of our injuries…

    2. Soton is depleted as well.
      They took out players due to injury.
      They were down to ten men due to injury.
      We scored when then reduced to 10

  22. Could not watch the match, but from reading the comments it was a hard win. Also it seemed like we are still struggling lots in build up. Positives, third clean sheet in a row, Martinez looks a composed keeper. Kos is great. We are managing to get wins. Alexis: game decider, that’s what makes him world class. he has that clutch, no doubt. a friend of mine said that this form he is in, easily top three in the world. And he is not an Arsenal fan, he pisses me off when we lose lol.

    Cold, rainy night at Stoke… Frightens me, but hope we get another win and play better than today. Best defence in the league nevertheless! City won 3-0 due to their mistake of going all-out.
    COYG!

  23. Winning formula to archive great things. Get a hell of a lot of south american players. Sanchez, super star. Giroud plays always great when comes out from the bench. Foster was a monster today.

    Coyg

    1. Wenger – ‘The best strikers these days come from South America’, then we have Welbeck, Giroud and Sanogo as our main strikers.

  24. Foster was immense, sensational, he should have the english job permanently, Martinez had impressed me from pre-season and i asked myself then if we really needed another keeper, ospina is a good shot stopper but not good with crosses, if this continues Wos is going to have a hard job replacing him.

    There were some iffy moments but you could see the team was far more comfortable at the back, the attacks did far too much dribbling when there were easy passes available and some of the passes were quite horrible, i had hope to see the attacking 3 from the last match, which i thought would had offered a more physical test to southampton who out muscled us at times and use constant fouling to stop our play.

    We probably only gained on southampton, but in this festive period it can only be one step at a time, better yet one game at a time

      1. He did apologise for his Dads action. Szczesny can’t have any impact as to what his father says.
        He immediately apologized to the club, manager and the players as soon as his dad had that outburst.

  25. Martinez was solid, just wanted to do his job without the bs.
    Good tactics in the end from Wenger…2 up front.
    Still missing Özil, Wallcott.
    Another win, keep it coming. Il be looking at first bridging the 7pt gap with Man City.

    1. Let him come of the bench as a sub for the last 25-30 minutes of the next game. I bet you will see his best performance of the season.

    1. its cos we have been playing poorly for two seasons straight.

      an alot of our true fans have been priced out of tickets

    1. Look he hasn’t made any mistake in his last three games. Scszesny is guaranteed to make atleast one mistake every game regardless weather it costs us or not.

  26. Call girouh what u want but he has come bk a beasts…his shot always hitting the target he looks quicker and stronger too..im not really worried about us scoring goals with Walcott and ozil we’ll get there..but our defense look sooooo much better already with the boss….we’re getting better people nothing is fix overnight it takes awhile but long aswe getting those 3 pts in the process who am I to complain

  27. Koscielny had Pelle in his pocket. Adds so much security to out back line.
    AOC has been working his tail off since Theo got fit, but in all fairness dribbles into a culdesac a bit too often. Regardless, he’s been dangerous and still deserved to stay on in place of Ramsey.
    Electrical Sanchez? Wow. Pure class.
    How Ramsey retains his place is beyond me. Popped up with an assist, but man….
    Welbeck is not the world class finisher we need to lead our line. Squandered too many chances today. Aguero finishes 3 of the chances Welbeck got today.
    Giroud great off the bench. Podolski worked his ass off and played with a point to prove. Deserves more than 10 minutes a game.
    Martinez playing beyond his years.
    Unpopular maybe, but if we continue in this 4141, when healthy, Mesut in the creative role, Santi in the industrious role, Ramsey to the bench. We’ll pick teams apart with a proper DM behind them.

    1. And today Alexis was below his standards, and still a class above. Needs a rest. Some say that he shouldn’t have to rest because messi and cr7 never do, but to be fair we don’t have the same supporting cast as them.

  28. We all know are team isnt really clicking to its full pontential and we need a dm and cb to be added but tonight’s 3 points was esential to keep us close to wh, mu and sh. If we can just get a run of less injuries and welcome back ozil, ospina, gnabry and walcott I feel we’ll have more depth be able to rotate more abd be more effective. Also wenger get shoping in jan why oh why did we not buy wanyama?! Coyg!

  29. Pod will always look good in the last 10-20 minutes of the game, as long as he is a sub, arsenal team is putting in a lot more defensive work than usual, i know Pod does not have the discipline to do so, why arsenal looking better? because everyone is contributing to the defense.

    Yes we have many injuries, but in truth we are not missing some of them WIlshere, Ozil and walcott are some of the best arsenal attackers, but football with you having the ball is about 50% of a game, what about the next 50% when you do not have the ball, you still have to contribute to the team defensively.

    Arsenal is improving its slow and hard work, but actually this is what arsenal players get good bucks far, lets continue

  30. I felt we had to patient against a team like Soton – they have one of the best defensive records for good reason. You get 2-3 chances in a match against a team like them and you have to take them. Forster played a blinder for them (England’s No 1 on this form). Wanyama out-muscled Santi and Ramsey until OG12 turned up. His body work on Wanyama was very good.
    Defensively we did very well – the whole cast especially Kos and Emiliano. The defensive work rate from ALL players was very good.
    lacking a bit of forward movement cohesion – the boys aren’t quite on the same wavelength all the time…not anticipating the direction of movement off the ball…something which I’m sure is being worked on.
    I feel we go to Stoke in good shape and we needn’t fear them. Sure it’s going to be a bruising affair and let’s hope the ref is on his game. Thought Mariner let a few too many go today – from both sides. OG12 should start that game and bring on Welbeck when they’re tired.
    A good win Gunners…let’s keep it going

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