Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction
Sometimes it’s not easy to know where to start after a game like last night’s, but this morning it’s pretty straightforward.
Aaron Ramsdale’s mistake in the first minute gifted Southampton a goal. I don’t know for sure whether or not he should have saved the shot, but I know he definitely shouldn’t have given the ball away. He tried the difficult pass to Zinchenko when he had centre-halves in space either side of him, and got punished to the maximum. Rob Holding should be telling him his keeper he wants the ball, not pointing to the most difficult option.
After the last two games, we needed a confident start, instead we shot ourselves in the foot. I thought we showed a bit of response with a driving run from Gabriel Martinelli rousing the crowd, but in the 14th minute Southampton scored again. We were careless in midfield, there was too much space for them to run into, and Theo Walcott did a thing that he did for us countless times in his career. His run off the back of Gabriel was excellent, the finish clinical.
0-2 down in 14 minutes. This is not what title chasing sides should do. I mean, it’s not what any side should do, but in the context of the last few weeks this felt particularly bad. Then we clicked. Martin Odegaard fed Saka down the right, he blistered beyond his full back, pulled it back and Martinelli was there to volley home first time. A really lovely goal. A good time to score.
But it was Southampton who threatened again. Ramsdale had to make a double save. There was a stoppage for an injury, and towards the end of the first half we came close. First Gabriel headed over, before a Ben White header from a corner was cleared off the line, and I have to say I think it’s one of the best clearances of that kind I can remember. The way the defender got across as the ball was drifting towards the top corner was both tremendously annoying and admirable.
At half-time Southampton took off their best player and put on another defender to go to five at the back. It’s a bit of a risk to do it at the break, rather than late on, but it worked for them. Despite dominance of possession and territory, we didn’t have a single shot until the 69th minute. The stark reality of that is that they went 3-1 up in the 66th. From a corner we shouldn’t have conceded but did when Partey was sloppy in possession, Holding allowed his man to get goal-side too easily. He then flicked the ball to the back post, where the defending from Zinchenko and Saka was static, allowing the Southampton man to thump a header home and extend the lead. Ugh. It’s so basic, it hurts.
The chance we had immediately afterwards ought to have been a goal. Martinelli, who made 6 key passes as well as his goal, put one on a plate for Gabriel Jesus but the finish was poor as he blasted it over the bar. By that time we had brought on Leandro Trossard for Fabio Vieira. The Portuguese was the man given the nod in the absence of the ill Granit Xhaka, but it’s fair to say this game passed him by. If Xhaka is missing again, Arteta has to look at something else. Whether it’s Trossard as the 8, or even Zinchenko in midfield with Tierney at left-back, Vieira has demonstrated he isn’t ready yet. Certainly not at this point of the season.
We huffed and puffed but it felt like the charge had gone out of our batteries. If the stadium sounded quiet, who could blame the fans there? It was not supposed to be like this. Deflating. The wind had gone out of our sails. Eddie came on for Zinchenko, and with five minutes of normal time remaining Reiss Nelson replaced Martinelli, which just added to my worries about Emile Smith Rowe who was, at least, warming up this time.
Tick-Tock. Tick-Tock. Jesus completely missed a header. Somehow, he ended up with six shots to his name, but it’s not a night he’ll remember fondly. Half-hearted shouts for a penalty on Saka, but it wasn’t, and with two minutes of normal time remaining it looked done and dusted. However, Odegaard played a 1-2 with Ben White and fizzed a shot into the bottom corner. 2-3.
HELLO SAILS, IT’S ME AGAIN, MR WIND!
It’s basically impossible to explain why we played the way we did for such long periods of this game, and then also explain how we did what we did in the last 10 minutes – including 8 minutes of injury time. I’ve talked a bit recently about how crazy and random football can be, how a moment can completely change the momentum. The Southampton fans who had been OLEing and doing the Poznan (I mean, I’m all for the bantz but stick that shit up your arses), were all of a sudden chewing their fingernails.
Moments later we fed the ball into their box, it came back for Nelson whose shot was saved but Saka was there to slam it home and make it 3-3. And there was a lot of time left to capitalise on this momentum. It almost happened. Trossard hit the bar with a shot that would have dipped under if he’d been a couple of yards further out; Nelson saw an effort deflected just wide, doing a dance of frustration after it whizzed past the post; there were a couple of scrambles where just a toe or a touch or scrappy poke would have seen it go home, but it didn’t. Jesus went down, got up again, instant resurrections, none of these falls were definitely a penalty but sometimes in the mayhem a ref can get caught up, but it wouldn’t go in.
It didn’t go in.
And in the end, as the final whistle blew, I felt this weird sensation of both exhilaration and crushing disappointment. How could you not get swept away that final period of the game? But you knew as soon as it was over that these were two more points dropped, and the implications for the title challenge were considerable.
I think that duality was evident in the manager post-game where he – as he has tried to do throughout this season – accentuated the positives and told his players he loved them, but was straight up about the issues:
Giving the ball away and conceding another goal from one pass, but you can’t concede three goals in this league. When you concede three goals in the way we did, a really sloppy way, it’s extremely difficult to win matches.
It’s clear that defensively we have to do things better, and not to concede three goals the way we have.
We are conceding too many goals, it’s as simple as that. Yes, we miss William Saliba, but he’s not a one-man band. The collective effort has to be better to make up for his absence, and individual errors are hurting us. You could see efforts made to offset some of what we miss in possession with the Frenchman in the way Thomas Partey dropped deep, almost as auxiliary centre-half, but on a night when the other side of your central midfield is lightweight due to the absence of Xhaka, you need him to be basically flawless and he far from that.
A lot has been said about what Zinchenko and Jesus have brought this season, and that’s absolutely right, but I think both were below their best last night. Hopefully they can make up for it on Wednesday. We just had a few too many players who didn’t give us what we know they can, and when you couple that with basic errors against a team scrapping for Premier League survival, you get punished.
That said, I think we have to give credit to our two 21 year old wingers who continue to deliver regardless of the circumstances. They were the leaders last night, along with Odegaard who sparked into life and almost lit the fire under another incredible comeback, but as Arteta says, you can’t concede three goals at home and hope to win games in this league. Even if you have that kind of quality on the flanks.
With City coming up on Wednesday, this high-stakes game has become even more so. We knew we had to get something from this one, after dropping more points we almost definitely need to win it. It’s a tall-order considering our record against them and … well, considering them on their own, and they’re the worst possible team to face when you’re experiencing defensive wobbles. I have to have a sliver of hope that something mad can happen, but my gut tells me something else, and I’m sure that’s a feeling shared with many of you this morning.
We always knew there were going to be bumps in the road as we fought for our first title in 19 years, but those bumps can leave you feeling nauseous and car-sick. Which more or less sums up where I am this morning.
Till tomorrow.