BTW, I noticed from the official PL commentary that they were unaware as to why some of the home crowd booed Chambers every time he touched the ball. Whilst I don't advocate booing, sometimes an absence of cheering just doesn't cut it..! So I can understand that a crowd may want to express itself in every form. Booing is expressing displeasure, in this case towards the individual Chambers. So how can a member of the media be so uninformed about a player who played 25 times for the first team in his break through season in the PL, and then told the club that had brought him through that he saw no future for himself at Southampton, and expressed a desire to leave for Arsenal, who had come calling..? After all, Chambers is a headline player these days. The media should know everything about him by now. Again, whilst I don't advocate booing, when I heard it happening, I completely understood the motivation.
And while I remember the contributions from the crowd, I mustn't forget this lustily sung little beauty, because it made me guffaw at the time: He wants to come home..! He wants to come ho-ome..! Theo Walcott He wants to come home..! Quite brilliant.
I think that's wishful thinking Chilci. At the time I asked if it was the celebration. I've singed watched the goal back carefully and see nothing to indicate it happened before or during the goal. A little amateurish if it was in the celebration.
Did you sit behind a pillar? Despite it being an excellent result and us having loads of chances, Arsenal clearly dominated possession. There was a point when I was mentioning to my mate that we would be in trouble if we didn't stop giving the ball straight back to Arsesnl. If you listen to one of the Ron interviews, he says the same thing about our ball retention.
Ha ha.... It was probably Dusan's worst touch of the game. He certainly didn't "kill it" and at the time and certainly seeing the replay on TV, my money says his heart was in his mouth because he had a poor first touch and nearly let that run away from him. Who cares though as it ended up in the net, but the rosy view of that by a saints fan made me giggle TSS.... a little like Ian Thumwood not believing the possession stats.
At the end, Theo walked round the pitch clapping all the Saints fans, as he does. It was sung again then and that was very funny!
Didnt see it myself but it might have been. The Mrs said during the celebration, 'Did he just knee him in the nuts?' Or words to that effect. Seems she has a keener eye than me. Or naturally watches football at groin level!
Soccer Saturday verdict – Tony Cottee “It’s easy to be critical of Arsenal, but I want to give Southampton praise. I saw them against Chelsea and they were defensively fantastic and it was exactly the same today. They defended as they had to and they defended properly. I could have been talking about a 4-0 or 5-0 to Southampton and you couldn’t say they wouldn’t have deserved it. They were absolutely outstanding. It’s easy to say how poor Arsenal were, but Southampton were very good.”
That can be used in any class on animal behaviour as a perfect example of displacement behaviour. Faced with anxiety or fear, an animal will sometimes do something irrelevant rather than what they want to do...which in his case was dig a hole and bury himself.
I thought it was because he wanted to finish his Christmas vodka before Mertesacker wanted some more.
It's like when my cat misses a jump. He just walks away, like he doesn't give a ****, but I know he's really ashamed of himself.
The possession stat surprised me but I think that Arsenal created very little in the first half. Forster had really little to do and, apart from nervous moments in the first half hour, I think our defence coped with what Arsenal had to offer. If Arsenal had pulled one back in the second half, it would have made the match interesting but you could have also had said if Pelle hadn't hit the woodwork twice or JWP had converted his efforts, Southampton could have well have ended up show-boating against a demoralised Arsenal team. Arsenal's best attempt was Cazorla's shot fired directed at the keeper. Southampton definitely created more and I feel we gave them more to consider than they managed to offer. It was a pretty good performance against a weakened time but I don't think it was as impressive as against Chelsea who were extremely challenging. A draw against Chelsea is more impressive than a win against Arsenal these days, I would suggest. (Although yesterday's result against Spurs was a huge shock.) There was no one in that team yesterday that Arsenal selected nor on their injury list who could put in performances like Hazard and Fabregas earlier this week. I'm inclined to think Hazard is the best player I've seen visit St. Marys this season. There is a country mile between Cheslea and Arsenal but in both games, Koeman showed that he had got his tactics spot on. We are not getting results through luck and what pleases me is that Koeman seems to be able to tailor formations against our opponents which will get a result.
What has the number of chances got to do with the possession stat, Ian? You said you were surprised by it based on your perception. Arsenal clearly had much more possession than us in the first half and at the start of the second half we kept giving it back to them and we were dropping deeper. Then our second goal appeared to give us a greater confidence in our possession and we kept it better. Nice politicians response though. Edit: Arsenal did have someone in their team who could do what the Chelsea players did: Sanchez. We marshalled him well, but. He still created chances and caused some problems. We were very good yesterday, but Fraser still made three more saves than he had to against Chelsea.
I have never seen so many articles appear on newsnow as I have about this game. In one article, Wenger was quoted as saying we were beatable...yes, we were, Arsene...so were Arsenal. The difference was that we beat them.
I've just been thinking (dangerous I know), but for all the stick Arsenal are getting - and some of it justified - what two games has Fraser made the most and best saves in this season so far? Food for thought. Arsenal's only problem is Wenger's stubbornness to admit he needed to sign a CB and a CDM. Put Toby and Morgan in that team, they'd be awesome.
