please log in to view this image Venue: Emirates Stadium Date: Saturday 5th October 2024 KO time: 15:00 BST Overall Record Wins: 53 Losses: 23 Draws: 30 Last six meetings Arsenal 3-3 Southampton Southampton 1-1 Arsenal Southampton 1-0 Arsenal Arsenal 3-0 Southampton Southampton 1-3 Arsenal Southampton 1-0 Arsenal (FA Cup) please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image
Partey at RB, probably to be expected with White and Timber out, but at least Tomiyasu is on the bench. Hopefully he can get a good 20-30 minutes. Jorginho in the middle with Havertz and Rice...hmmm...not sure about that. Sterling has his first start of the season, Jesus starts up top and Saka on the right.
We haven't conceded in the first minute, so it's already an improvement on what happened the last time we played them
9 mins gone and it's been one way traffic. We're forcing them into turnovers and pressing them high up the pitch. Jesus and Sterling had chances that they both should have done better with.
Another good chance, but Havertz takes a second too long to play the final ball and Walker-Peters clears it.
Another good opportunity from a corner - Havertz unfortunately takes it off Gabriel (who had a better chance of scoring imo), but he couldn't have known this. Unlucky. If Southampton keep giving us these chances, this isn't going to end well for them.
HT. 0-0. Not good enough. This is one of the worst teams in the league and we're messing around. Playing all the nice touches, winning the ball high, but we're trying to be too intricate and taking too long to get shots off. We started off incredibly well, but then we let Southampton settle and it's all been too pedestrian and predictable. We are struggling to penetrate through central areas. They've not posed any attacking threat, but they've looked pretty comfortable since they decided to defend deeper. Arsenal's attack has been extremely underwhelming.
I get, on paper, we should be beating Southampton with minimal issues. But this XI is not balanced (which was my fear), so I'm not sure what Arteta was expecting with that lineup. And Southampton decided to be more sensible with their pragmatic setup OOP. We ended up resorting to shots from outside the box and Ramsdale's only save came from that Partey chance. It is far, far too easy to nullify us. We'd better turn this around. Absolutely inexcusable if we drop points here.
Martinelli, Trossard and Merino on. Honestly, two of those three players should have been starting this game. Arteta picked the wrong time to experiment. We'd better find a way to win.
2-1. Martinelli. Lovely floated cross from Saka and Martinelli ghosts in at the back post to give us the lead. I want to be happy, but I'm still fuming at how Mikel approached this game.
They've hit the bar and the post since we've scored, and went close just a couple minutes ago. I don't care if we still win this game, this has been a disgraceful display. I don't understand why we're so panicky and rushed in everything we're doing.
Saka. 3-1. He's deserved that, we don't win this game without him. Still cannot believe how much of a meal we've made of this game. Going life and death with a team 19th in the division isn't what I want to be seeing.
Not sure why Kiwior didn't start from the beginning. Partey at RB is experiment thats gone wrong on 2 previous occasions. It has to be said that Calafiori is basically prime Maldini.
Weird game - we started well should have scored a couple early. Sterling started the game well but faded after 30 mins or so. Cant fault our mentality though - when we go down there's a real never say die attitude with this bunch of players. Jesus was awful and has been for months. Also Partey at RB is a horrible experiment I don't want to see again - (even though he did fine) Calafiori and Havertz were class today and Trossard & Martinelli made a huge impact coming off the bench.
