Match Day Thread Southampton vs Arsenal - Matchday Thread

Yep. I think we will finish below West Ham and potentially Wolves now too.

KSE will stick with Arteta, though. For reasons that are totally unclear to me.

Every single time we make a gamble, it has backfired. And rather than learn from it, we do the same thing over again and again. Yet the club expect a different outcome.

And this isn't even the benefit of hindsight because were saying what a monumental risk we were taking in not strengthening in January. Now look what's happened.

Disastrous decision making from the top for the millionth time.

We will never prosper as a club until the upper hierarchy stop neglecting the here and now.

 

This is Wenger-esque levels of delusion.

He's lost the plot.

 

That's up there with Graham Souness claiming Villa deserved to beat us after we beat them 4-0 and said "what more could Villa have done..?"

Errrrr not concede 4 at home and score???

We are an average team at best ... if you were to finish behind us 2 and a half years into "the project" I would suggest the project is broken.

 

Our problems right now lie with our lack of quality and depth in our squad. We are short, badly. We knew this would be a consequence of clearing out the deadwood, and that Jan window is looking like a bad gamble right now, especially as we ain't scoring any goals and we gave away/loaned out Aubameyang and Balogun

As for Arteta. He's put together a first XI that can compete. So he's got a method that works. But we have a paper thin squad and he hasn't got a plan B. Also the players we rely on just aren't good enough.

The board need to back him with some money in the summer to build a squad that isn't crippled as soon as we lose any of our key players.

 

In his 2 full seasons he's spent around £230m and raised £45m from sales making a net of £185m ... if you get top 4 then I make you right.
If he comes 5th or 6th then maybe but if he gets 7th and the ECL or 8th and no Europe then it would seem a big gamble to continue with him imho.

We were woeful until Conte arrived and average at best until the new signings bedded in in late February.
Pre Conte we won 5 Lost 5, scored 9 conceded 16.

Can't imagine him lasting if you finish behind us.

FWIW think we've both blown it and United will come 4th.

 

I still think you lot will get 4th. Man United needed a hat trick from one of the best players in the world to scrape a win past a Norwich side who are, in all honesty, already down.

They’ve got some tricky games left, and their next match is Liverpool at Anfield which will be a significantly trickier task.

Agree on Arteta - he has been given more time than Emery, more transfer windows, more money and we aren’t witnessing enough progress. We are on course to score less and concede more compared to last season.

Falling out of the top-6 (which is what I now think will happen) should be a sackable offence.

Europa League should be the minimum requirement considering we were in 4th for so long.

 

You didn’t look like the weaker side yesterday - we hardly touched the ball. Putting my neutral head on for a minute, Saints set up with only one intention, to avoid another crushing defeat like the one against Chelsea (and like the one against you at the Emirates in December, which could also have been six). It’s incredibly difficult to break down a team with 3 CBs and two defensive midfielders, and fullbacks that have been our best players all season; add to that the fact that Fraser Forster has somehow morphed into Gordon Banks recently, and Arsenal were left with the horrible task of trying to break down a side that had clearly spent the whole week on the training ground practicing keeping you out.

You got mugged a bit for the goal, our plan worked - and we really ****ing needed it to, and fought hard for a change - but you were easily the better team. And Spurs lost at home to, er, Brighton. Hope you get that 4th spot, still between you and Spurs imo; Utd are a mess and West Ham don’t deserve it.

 

Biggest problem is goal threats. Neither Saka, Martinelli or whoever plays up top are consistent goal threats like Son, Mount etc

Pepe is our best scorer but never plays. Next best is ESR but his best scoring position is Odegaard and he's never getting dropped. I'd put Pepe on the wing and Martinelli up top. At least we'd have one goal threat.

 

Goal scoring has been a problem since Arteta arrived - that’s 2.5 years.

Injuries or no injuries 2.5 years and we are still not scoring goals at will - to me this suggests his style doesn’t really work.

as for the defense, well it’s looking like we will concede more goals this season than last, so not sure that can be considered “fixed”.

personally think Arteta is solksjaer 2.0 and we are just wasting time with him until his inevitable sacking.

 

I've been saying this for a while now. Our chance creation and goalscoring actions under Arteta have not been good throughout his entire tenure. This isn't just a one or two game problem. He doesn't seem to know how to coach attacking patterns of play when we dominate the ball.

He keeps talking about needing better quality players and needing a player who can do x, y and z. What's the point of you being a coach if you can't improve what you have or are relying on the transfer market all the time?

We need 10 goals in our final 7 games to match our goal tally from last season. Does anyone really think we will do this?

Look at how many times we spam crosses in the box (even though we have no proper centre forward) and struggle to penetrate through central areas. We're always relying on wing play or 1v1 take-ons from Saka/Martinelli. Our attacking patterns are entirely predictable. There's no variation to our game. That's why teams find it easy to stifle us.