Arsenal Comprehensively Beaten
Normally when Arsenal lose a match they do most things well but are beaten by a single stroke of bad luck or perhaps they are beaten off a single aspect of a game. There are games where Arsenal make a few mistakes and are burned, like in the West Ham match where Cech and Ox both made errors for goals. There are games where Arsenal are beaten by some dodgy refereeing, like the Chelsea match. There are games where Arsenal create plenty of chances but can’t get the ball in the net, like the 1-0 loss to Swansea last season. And so on. We have numerous example of Arsenal struggling with one or two aspects of the game. But today Southampton simply dominated all aspects of the game and made Arsenal look tired and outclassed. This game, this hurts.
Sure, the first goal was a fluke. You’ll never see that goal from that guy ever again. And yes, the second goal was from a trip which went uncalled by referee Moss. But the third goal was an unmarked header in the box and in the period between each of those goals, Arsenal was simply bossed by Southampton, so much so that they couldn’t generate enough offense to get back into the game.
14 – Southampton outshot Arsenal 14-7
5 – Southampton got more shots on target than Arsenal 5-4
3 – Southampton got more shots in prime than Arsenal 3-1
3 – Southampton created more big chances than Arsenal 3-0
23 – Southampton out tackled Arsenal 23-11 and most of the tackles weren’t high press, just tackles in their own half
9 – Southampton also had more dribbles than Arsenal 9/15 to 8/10 — this is unusual for a team to try more dribbles than the opposition and also to tackle more. Typically, tackles and dribbles go hand in hand. The only time that they don’t is when a player is dispossessed without attempting a dribble, in other words, when they have the ball and aren’t passing it or attacking the defender one on one. This is the “killer” stat here: Arsenal were simply having the ball taken away from them in the Southampton half
21 – Arsenal were dispossessed 21 times in that game, Southampton 6 times — this is what you saw when Arsenal’s attack kept breaking down over and over again (Walcott was dispossessed 6 times, Özil 4 — for Southampton Steven Davis was dispossessed twice)
12 – If we look at turnovers it’s a similar story: take out Mane’s insane 8 turnovers and Southampton had just 4 all day. If we take out Joel Campbell’s 4 turnovers (led Arsenal), Arsenal had 12
8 – Here’s a hard thing to quantify, but Arsenal made 8 bad passes in their own defensive third. If you look at the passing stats, most of the guys were just fine: Campbell, 92%; Ramsey, 90% of 88 passes; Özil 90% of 67 passes; and so on. But Koscielny was 75%, misplacing 15 passes. But worse than just the low percentage, which you can get away with if you’re hoofing the ball, Koz had 5 giveaways in the Arsenal half, all off short passes. He is 91% in short passing this season, for him to miss 5 in his own half (combined with the fact he tried 8 long balls) indicates that there was a lot of midfield pressure that he was unable to break.
To be clear, I’m not blaming Koscielny. Passing is at least a two-person event and just because Koz gets the blame for the missed pass doesn’t mean it was entirely his fault. What I’m saying instead is that poor offensive stats can also be attributed to good defensive pressure. And in this case, we have to give credit to Southampton, they were by far the fresher of the two teams and it showed in nearly every aspect of the game.
@7amkickoff
Sources: All Opta today, baby
Such a toothless performance. Hopefully that’s the annual drubbing quota fulfilling game we’ve gotten out of the way. Onwards to Bournemoth.
Well, before the match Wenger said that last season was the turning point against them……..So let’s try turning all the way to the title in may, 😉 rhymed.
Hehe. Good one.
But i think city was our turning point this time… It’s become something of a habit. We go on a winning streak culminating in a big win vs top rivals and then we fall to small fry..
Kinda like those dreams where you are flying and then when you feel confident enough you look down an instantaneously start falling.
Forgive me. I just woke up
Beaten by a Southampton team rolled over at home by the Spuds just
7 days ago.How?
think it’s because they didn’t roll over last night. And rolling over vs spurs meant they had energy last night that we didn’t
I’ m afraid the players looked/were tired. Arsenal always have aproblem with physical sides.
Having not won in 6 matches,Koeman would be in no mood to roll over.
I think most fans would agree with the need for a md.The gunners have agood chance
this season to win the epl. If they don’t take it with some infusion of fresh blood,the wait would be longer.
Players were tired. Southampton went thuggish and got some holiday cheer from the ref.
In terms of football I fucking hate Christmas–too many games. Best case scenario is we make it to mid-January still near the top with no new injuries and the currently injured ones coming back.
According to Wright,Ozil was well marked by Wanyama and two more Saints.
I’m afraid if Arsenal rely too much on the german,they could be easily defeated.
The other gunners must step up.
Before the game I had afeeling that the Saints aint going to give the german time
and space.It turned out to be true.
Wenger better have plan B in case Ozzil is stifled. The gunners cannot afford to be on dimensional.
This game wasn’t even about our number of dimensions. Nobody came to play football.
Our top striker had his first attempt on the 83rd minute (a tame header) and we want to put that on the shoulders of the midfielders?
Nobody performed simple (including the ref, he probably trained with us)
Alexis is your extra dimension!
When we saw it wasn’t working, I’d have been tempted to put Theo up top with Giroud and move Ozil wide. Just to switch it up, disrupt their game
Or even use Giroud as a target man, seeing they owned the midfield.
We should just credit the saints and move on. i think it’s easier to accept that we had a bad day. I still feel we will win against Bournemouth, however you cant really tell this season. We just need our players back as soon as possible, we are usually pretty consistent after the new year.
Next…
How Southampton has managed to make us look like shit twice, on 1.1.2015 and 26.12.2015 is unbelievable.
Wilshere and Ramsey’s birthdays. It’s their fault…. somehow.
If Weger aspires to win the epl,the gunners better show more fight. My feeling is
the same eleven have been playing for along time and have taken their place in the
team for granted or were jaded.
Gabriel has not been playing for some time. I know if it aint broke,dont fix it.But the epl is a physically demanding and competitive league and some of the regulars need some respite.
Wenger blames the ref. He might be correct to a point.You never know.
And people are on here consoling themselves by blaming it all on the ref. They would still have beaten us (maybe not by 4).
We simply didn’t do anything right and it’s not a coincidence that this happened as we were in line to go top. The strength we need is not physical but mental.
Yeah. I think we also got away with a few. That disallowed goal from Shane long could easily have been allowed. I don’t see the infringement on Mertesacker there.
https://youtu.be/zIf9Xl_Mdz4
Kosceilny also got away with a few bad challenges like this one
http://arsenalist.com/f/2015-16/southampton-vs-arsenal/koscielny-gets-away-with-one.html
And several mistakes at the back to boot. Ozil didn’t show up, walcott was literally in a different dimension. And Giroud might as well have been a soton defender
Anyone who blames the ref for this loss can’t be serious.
Ref was bad but he wasn’t bad to us. He was just bad
Yeah yeah yeah!….its painful…Yes, bruising on our ego….yes, but in the grand scheme of things, whether we lost 6: 0 or 1:0, its still the same 3 points lost, and as fans, now is the time to rally the troops, stand by our club and players, so that they can focus on the next match and WIN! We can’t afford to wallow in defeat this time of the year. the games come thick and fast. All is not lost yet, all our main rivals are also dropping points, so if we can just keep focus and stay strong, we can… Read more »
i am not surprised by what the stats are showing…..its just a confirmation of a horror show that we all watched unfold before our eyes. Shocking! Abysmal! disgraceful!….not to mention the suffering and embarrassment to club and fans. its painful now, no doubt, but the anguish will go away. we have been here before…….Yes, i am dreading reading the morning papers, Yes, i am definitely keeping off certain web sites and tv shows and i won’t be picking up calls from certain ‘friends’, but despite all these doom and gloom, as fans, we need to lift our selves up fairly… Read more »
We could also fall flat on our faces because in a 10 day spell mid Jan we have Liverpool then Stoke away then Chelsea at home.
Worringly we still have to play away at man city, man u, liverpool, spurs, stoke and everton
8 misplaced passes in our own defensive third is just crazy. I’m guessing thats more than the likes of Bayern and barca forced out of us over the last few years and pep is the high press master.
So I think u have to for credit to Southampton for getting their tactics spot on and executing their game plan to perfection. We didn’t turn up and didn’t compete ofc but I think much of that is down to the way Southampton played.
Nice article as always. However, the first two stats are an example of “lies, damn-lies and statistics”. I’m sure the stats for the Man City match looked worse than that on paper, and we won. Same as possession stats – until someone starts calculating possession as the time a team has on the ball it’s a worthless stat. Think about the goal Thierry Henry scored against Spurs when he dribbled from one end of the pitch to the other – that’s one pass, but we had the ball for probably 15-20 seconds after that. That would count as half the… Read more »
I totally agree about possesion stats. For example imagine we are playing we are playing man u, they kick off and then alexis immediately tackles them. He then proceeds to spend the rest of the half running in circles with the ball. At half time man u would have made 1 pass and their time of possesion would be about 2 seconds but they would have had 100% possesion according to the stats we are fed. Its not the % of possesion like we are told its the % of total passes attempted. I also have issues with the completed… Read more »
What is clear to me is that when Özil is man marked like he was yesterday, we miss Santi big time. I don’t think Ramsey, however good he is, can lead the team tactically. I thought the same when Mesut went off against MC, we could not hold onto the ball anymore. What bothers me much though is how difficult it was for our CBs to cope with long through ball time and time again…The offside trap worked well at the begining of the game, i don’t get why we did not try to play a higher line of defence…but… Read more »
Freak result. Still rather be second than 15th. No need to panic (would quite like some reinforcements in January, mind…)
I called it at the beginning of the season, and I was right of course. This team doesn’t have the mentality to win the league. Top four and no higher is the target this club sets for itself. If Sanchez has any sense he’ll be gone in the summer as he doesn’t have a hope in hell of winning a major title with us. For all the fawning over Ozil recently he went completely missing last night btw, still think we wasted a good chunk of cash on him.
I’m calling it now: You’re a d…
Hopefully we’ll score more goals than bournemoth on monday. Manciteh beat lester and we go on top.
Per Mertesacker is a weak link in the Arsenal defence. Why on earth is he still playing regularly ahead of Gabriel?
Yeah, some dodgy ref decisions but basically our players don’t like that sort of physical match as has been shown time and time again.
Maybe there’s been too many broken legs in the past for them to have the stomach for those type of 50/50 tackles, especially on a slippery pitch.
Just one of those things that you have to get used to as an Arsenal supporter lol 😀
Next….!
4 – 0 that’s enough numbers for me thanks, moving swiftly on…COYG!
I’d rather see city lose.
Unacceptable. We’re still second because, thankfully, everybody are so poor. Only a nobody called “Cuco Martina” could score such a goal on his first game in the PL, of course against us!! Anyway, hopefully this is just a bad day. They better improve against Bournmouth
Cuco Martina, Danny Rose, that Wigan bloke when they beat us 2-1 at Emirates, David ‘f*****g’ Bentley, the list could grow to be fair. Bit part players who turn up in big games and every so often that’s enough to beat a big team. If we replicated the first half, and got a moment of luck, even 2-1 to them with ten minutes to go is salvageable. For three decisions to go against you, leading to three big chances and three goals, sod all you can do. We were so bad, we deserved to concede them anyway, but it took… Read more »
I hope Leicester beats city tomorrow so we can be back on 4 points advantage, city is our main treat and we will need those 4 points to stay in title race in February when we play very difficult games in a row. Leicester will fall.