Wojciech Szczesny says Southampton are the Premier League’s best-drilled side without the ball after Arsenal were given a torrid time by Mauricio Pochettino’s side in last night’s 2-2 draw.
The Pole was kept busy all evening at St Mary’s as the home side harried the Gunners from the first whistle to the last with their quick pressing taking a real toll on the fluidity of Arsene Wenger’s side.
Speaking after the game, the 23-year-old echoed comments he’d made earlier in the season after the 2-0 win at the Emirates:
“In [terms of] pressing high up they are by far the best in the Premier League, it’s tough to get out of your own half. Credit to them, that’s their tactic and it worked well in the first half – we managed to get out a few times in the second half and it was a much more even game.
“When you play for Arsenal, you’re always disappointed when you don’t win – especially when you’ve been 2-1 up. But having said that, we were very lucky to come in 1-0 [down] at half time. They had played much better than us and would have been disappointed with a draw as well, but it is a well-deserved point for both teams.”
Olivier Giroud was in similarly bullish mood after the tough encounter. Buoyed by his tenth Premier League goal of the season, the Frenchman told Arsenal Player that two dropped points doesn’t signal the end of the Gunners title-challenge.
“We had some trouble in the first half to play our game, maybe because Southampton closed us down really well. After that we wanted to come back as strongly as we could and we did well but it’s a shame we didn’t manage to win the game.
“Southampton are one of the best teams we have played, they deserved the draw. We have to come back on Sunday now – we have the opportunity to play at home so we have to look forward to that. The championship is not finished and we have to keep our heads up. It’s not the end of the world.”
You know who coulda scored yesterday?
Chu-Young “GOALS” Park. He can slip through defenders, lubed up with the tears of broken dreams and slot a ball through Boruc’s ogre-like arms in seconds… WAKE UP WENGER!
Come on Ju Young, we all know it’s you typing that.
HAHAHA!
I thought they were very good last night made us look very poor for a lot of the game think a draw was a fair result in the end but onwards and upwards we,ll bounce back on sunday
Giroud making good biscuits again. double chocolate chip. good.
The pressing game always works particularly well against teams who play short passing football and try to build from the back, so this was always going to be a really tough fixture for us as we are pretty much the embodiment of that. I know that we have Giroud up top to launch long balls to, but I think that by the time the midfielders realise the defense is under pressure and drop deep to receive the ball, that’s when the defense decides to launch the ball forwards. Which meant against Southampton that Giroud often didn’t have anyone to knock… Read more »
Southampton played really well. But what irritated me was the wayward passing. So many times when we tried the long ball and just gave it away. Sagna and Arteta are the most reliable when it comes to passing, but even they gave it away yesterday. On the other hand, Ozil almost had a 42 million pound movement with an overdrive from midfield in the second half. Would have loved it if that had ended up in the back of the net.
Cazorla had a fair number of wayward passes too. I was frustrated by this as well– especially when it happened as we were building up play in their territory.
I’ll praise the form of Santi cazorla the mans found his shooting boots !!!
Does anyone else think that cazorla gives away the ball way too many times?? Trying too much to keep the ball rather than clearing it?
yeah he should clear when we are trying to clear out from our penalty area,same goes for monreal, i guess spanish players are not accustomed to clearing !
Any truth in what sky sports are saying that we,r in Germany in draxler talks
Offtopic, but please please please let this happen: http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11670/9139706/transfer-news-arsenal-in-talks-over-schalke-midfielder-julian-draxler
What it all comes down to is biscuits. Biscuits, biscuits, biscuits.
Luke Shaw – hates em
Ollie G – craves em
Draxula – ???
Dickie Law knows
Prepare to get ‘ruled’ Shalke oh4
I like biscuits Teddy!
Chey knows!
Thumbs down means you don’t like biscuit.
Im glad giroud & santi scored,
This is a game we could have lost a few seasons ago coz we played so badly especially first half but to come out with a point and scoring two goals after being a goal down at half time shows our resilience and mental strength this season,i think if you can’t win the game it’s better not to lose it especially when you are not at your best.
lesser teams need to be terminated with ease
More ruthless and less charitable please. The silver lining was both Santi and Giroud found the net again. Monreal was culpable for a poor clearance but thought Szsc could have done better with the first goal. Monreal was better second half particularly going forward where he had an unfortunate miss in front of goal. I suspect he needs to be playing more consistently otherwise he will keep experiencing these slight hiccups. but the team as a whole in midfield was extremely lethargic bordering on lazy. Principally this is because Arteta and Flamini tend to sit too deep together and do… Read more »
Um how does Ramsey not offer the same vertical runs that Jack does? Though with Ramsey you get one of the best tacklers in the league as well as a much superior defensive work rate. He’s also a late runner into the box which adds another type of goal threat for us. Though Jack has been much better of late than earlier in the season; in fact he’s been one of our better performers; I don’t think there’s any denying a dip in our overall form for about the past month. We’ve been winning but not convincingly so at all.… Read more »
Saints fan here, enough of the lesser team, yes we will always finish under you, arsenal have my most respect of the top clubs but some people think they have a divine right to beat all teams, arsenal were lucky to get a point on the performance, remember saints beat Liverpool at Anfield and drew at old Trafford
We always seem to come out and say this when we play terribly. Southampton played well but we couldn’t pass the ball two yards yesterday. Really they should just admit they played with no heart in first half and move on to the next game.
I have a soft spot for Arsenal as I live in Radlett and worked for Sega when we did the Dreamcast shirt deal.
However, Saints deserved their point and we played really well first half and we’re unlucky not to win.
I hope Arsenal can win the league as you play some greet football and have some fantastic players inc Theo and Ox.
Is it true that the team turned up only 40 minutes before kick off due to a delay?
A gracious comment or two never hurt anyone. These two are class acts.
Can anyone tell me why we weren’t in for Luuk De Jong? He has a brilliant finish on him and has a lot of games under his belt. Just joined Newcastle on Loan for six months with an option to buy him at the end of the season!
Reply to Illinois Gooner,
Two words; Arsene Wenger.