So Arsenal still can’t beat Southampton at St Marys, despite our opponents being without a win in six games going into the match. With Leicester being soundly beaten earlier in the day, the Gunners could have ended the day on top of the pile, but now we stay 2 points behind the Foxes and now just one ahead of Man City.
Despite the embarrassing 4-0 scoreline, Wenger thinks that the referee gifted our opponents their first three goals. Le Prof said after the game: “I think Southampton made the game very physical and we lost many challenges and that explains why we lost the game. That is one aspect, so well done to them.
“The second aspect is that on the first three goals we were really unlucky with the decision of the referee, the second goal was a foul and the third goal was a goal kick. If you are a bit under level and on top of that you have the first three goals against you with decision-making, it is even more difficult. We hope in the next game we have decisions like that for us.”
Wenger was smiling wryly at the defeat, and the media asked him if he thought it funny. He replied: “I smile, I don’t smile. What can I do about it? I cannot influence that. I must say they were sharper than us in the challenges and on that front we have to look at what we can master. We cannot master the decision of the referee but we can master our own behaviour and I believe Southampton looked stronger in the challenges and we lost too many tonight.
“I said before the game at the moment if we are one point ahead or one point behind it is not too important. It is the performance that counts. We were not good enough to win the game and we have to look at that. On the other hand we can’t look too much at that as in 48 hours we play again. We were disappointed and frustrated and the only way is to respond in 48 hours.”
I thought Ronald Koeman’s reaction to Wenger’s tirade against Jon Moss was quite funny. “Only the first three? He didn’t say anything about the fourth goal? That’s strange,” Koeman said. “I like to analyse the game and if you lose 4-0 and you talk about the referee it’s not my way to analyse a football game.”
He has a point, because to be honest most of the Arsenal players were playing at 50% of their usual capability. But we just have to hope that the team gets themselves back on track in the next two days. There is still a long way to go and we are lucky in that the team above us also dropped points, so we cannot judge the season on this one game.
Bring on Bournemouth and let’s forget this game very quickly!