Arsenal run out of steam at St Mary’s

Southampton 1 Arsenal 1 
Premier League 
Sunday 23rd October 2022 2pm   

The trip to Southampton is one that has presented enough problems over the years for this fixture not to have been taken for granted, irrespective of the Saints’ relatively poor season so far. When they beat Arsenal back in April, it was a rare win for them in a poor run during 2022 up to that point. There have been plenty of draws and defeats for the Gunners at St Mary’s down the years. And it proved another banana skin yesterday, as the winning run since the defeat at Old Trafford (eight wins in all competitions) came to and end.

What might be worth noting though is that since beating Liverpool, in four games Arsenal have scored once per match. The defence has done an excellent job, but it came unstuck at Southampton and two points were dropped. Although Manchester City haven’t overtaken Mikel Arteta’s side yet, it does feel like a matter of time, and on that score, it is the results of the teams below City that are probably of greater relevance for Arsenal. It wasn’t the worst of weekends, as Liverpool and Spurs both lost, whilst Manchester United and Chelsea shared the points at Stamford Bridge. 

It was an unchanged side from last Sunday’s win over Leeds, Tomiyasu continuing at left back. Arsenal started very strongly with a series of dangerous attacks, and we only had to wait until the 12th minute before a lead was established at the conclusion of an excellent move with White and Saka combining on right wing. It led to an excellent cross from White to pick out Xhaka near the penalty spot from where he rifled the ball into the roof of the net with his right foot. 

For a while you felt it might have echoes of the early 2000s when Arsenal would settle the game in the first 20 minutes and then switch to training ground mode. Yet, the second goal didn’t come. The referee didn’t help, and when Gabriel was not given a penalty when he went down in the area you felt like it was a sympathy vote for Southampton. Things got worse on that front as Caleta-Car kept pulling Jesus down and the ref continued ignoring it. I know officials are under instruction to allow greater physicality, but at times, it felt like rugby rules were the order of the day.

Saka and Martinelli both made runs into the centre of the Southampton defence and caused plenty of panic, but as the half wore on, the league leaders let the home side back into the game.  This culminated in a series of corners, although Arsenal proved resilient to those, even though they were all well placed into the area near the goalmouth. With a backline all at least six feet tall and Thomas Partey, there is greater physical strength in the side to deal with the aerial stuff, a sometime weakness last season. Half time came and the weather started to turn after a sunny start. 

Southampton picked up the second half where they left off by creating more attacks, and it didn't feel like too much of a surprise when an equalizer came after 64 minutes. It was a well-worked goal. You could argue that Granit Xhaka might have tracked the scorer, but generally the defence was caught flat-footed as Armstrong made a good run into space before slotting the ball past Ramsdale.

Arteta tried to freshen things up with Nketiah and Tierney entering for Martinelli

and White, as Southampton introduced Che Adams and a familiar face in the form of Theo Walcott, who left Arsenal in Arsene Wenger’s final season. You could see why Theo has not featured that much since his move to the south coast from Everton. 

Although Southampton also played in midweek, Arsenal looked the team with less energy in the latter stages, their pressing game a couple of gears down and pretty token. In mitigation Arteta’s side have played extra midweeks due to European competition, and even if the first choice players have been rotated, they have still traveled and often been used as subs if they didn’t start in the Europa League.

Tierney set up Odegaard for a nice goal that was ruled out as the ball had gone out of play before the left back had got his cross in. It was the final moment of real threat from the visitors, and their passing went to pot in injury time. Vieira had replaced Odegaard by then and looked like he had put his boots on the wrong feet.

Arsenal were fortunate to take all three points at Leeds last weekend. Yesterday, with better refereeing and finishing, they should have won, but drew. At least they didn’t give away a late goal. But ultimately, Southampton finished the stronger, and the excellent start to the Gunners’ season was always going to hit another bump in the road at some point after the first defeat against Manchester United. They recovered well from that and with three more league fixtures before the World Cup break, it must be hoped they do so again. 

A home game against Forest should be three points, going on home form, and visits to Chelsea and Wolves follow. A good number of players can probably be rested for the cup games, and it’s in games like yesterday’s the advantage of a stronger squad is all too evident. A bit of me wonders if Arteta might choose to rest more players than normal for the trip to Eindhoven in midweek and rely on beating FC Zurich at home to secure first place in the group. 

Let’s see what happens, but four goals in four games is a drop off and it did feel yesterday that the season was starting to catch up with the Arsenal players. Arteta has them playing at a level of intensity that must be exhausting, and he can’t bring in fresh legs as easily as Pep Guardiola due to the lesser depth in his squad. So you can excuse his players for looking a bit tired against Southampton.

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