On a wet miserable night in the South coast of England, Arsenal contrived to hand the advantage back to its title rivals with what has to be described as one of our worst performances of the season. Its difficult to explain or rationalize just how badly we played in that first 45mins, was it nerves? or just our plain inability to get the engines firing. The boss in his now customary love for using automobile analogies to describe games, said we just couldn't find the right gear. He sounded coy in his press conference after the game, but i sense he must be worried at what has now become a consistent first half malaise in games recently. Apart from the Cup ties against the spurs and more recently against Coventry, matches against West ham, Fulham,Cardiff and now Southampton have seen us start worryingly flat. My concern revolves around the premise that unless we find a way to get our best foot forward in games, better teams in this division will capitalize on this and have us chasing games before we sort out ourselves out and start playing (which often is in the 2nd half). We were poor in our marking, sluggish on the ball, and laying sloppy passes throughout that miserable first half. And to be honest i'd say we were lucky not to have conceded more than one goal as the hosts had very good chances to kill us off. Their goal was a bit unlucky for us as Mertasacker was called for a foul that wasn't one and from the resultant freekick Fonte (the man who was headbutted by his own teammate in training) climbed all over Monreal to head past Szczesny in the 21st minute. It nearly got worse as young striker Gallagher contrived to miss a simple tap-in after Monreal had made a very untidy clearance. It was the luckiest of breaks as the referee Lee Masons' whistle brought an end to Arsenal's misery at the break. I bet Wenger couldn't wait to get his men off the pitch fast. We were simply dreadful and the slight encouragement for me was that i couldn't fathom any way we could possibly play worse than that, therefore suggesting we could only emerge for the 2nd half better than what we saw in the first.
And so it proved, whatever the Boss said to the guys at half time worked like a charm. Arsenal began much better in the 2nd half. We looked a lot more like the premier league leaders as we bossed early proceedings. Jack Cork and Calum chambers of Southampton who had ran the show in the first half suddenly began to look like they were in for a long night as Arsenal began to pass the ball confidently around and had them chasing shadows. Within minutes of our early domination we were level. Bacary Sagna had ventured forward and managed to out-hussle a defender and steer the ball into Olivier Giroud's path. The striker did well to improvise with his back to goal and back heeled an effort past the goalkeeper. Goals change games and with that equalizer our confidence reached new levels. For a 2 minute spell the hosts couldn't get near the ball as we pushed to stamp our advantage. Four minutes later it was 2-1, Ozil in his languid manner swept into a wide position on the right and with customary ease found Carzola free just outside the box. The Spaniard who seems in confident form lately took one step to steady himself and rifled a low shot past Boruc to stun the home crowd into silence. It was a fine goal symptomatic of the upturn in form of Santi at a point in the season where we need him firing on all cylinders. Our joy was short-lived however, as Southampton restored parity quickly. For all our well eulogized defensive solidity, the goal by Llallana was a poor one to give away. A long ball from the middle caught Bacary Sagna struggling and from that pass Jay Rodriguez fed his strike partner who made no mistake. Curiously there was no one tracking the run of Llallana as he moved into the box and Arteta who had a rotten game last night, needs to take responsibility for that. So 2-2 it was and for the most part,somehow i felt we could still win it. Our best chance to do so came from Ozil, who made a stunning solo run from the middle went past 3 men and smashed a deflected shot past Boruc that cannoned off the bar rather unluckily. Then a crucial moment of the game unfolded, Flamini in a moment of sheer madness lunged in 2 footed at Morgan Schneiderlin and got his marching orders. Straight red card for the Frenchman means he will miss the Man U, Liverpool games in (Cup and League) and Crystal palace on Sunday. It was a daft tackle to make in any game but considering we are the away team and knowing what the refs in the EPL are like, it looked even more stupid. Added to the terrible news of Ramsey's setback we are looking at being avoidably stretched now in midfield.
This result even though it is quite bad,is not a complete disaster. Southampton are a decent team and were worthy of their point. There are still plenty of games ahead and so this one needs to be quickly forgotten. Chelsea and Manchester City play tomorrow and the worst case scenario is we may end up in 3rd position by the end of tomorrows games. I know it is wishful thinking, but here's hoping those Lilly whites can find some pride at their home ground and prevent city from winning. Also who knows, West ham could also pull out a shock result bouyed by their recent Italian imports. For us though, its a return to London with a clear conviction to improve on this rather poor outing before we welcome Crystal Palace on Sunday..
No comments:
Post a Comment