Arsenal beat Southampton 3-2 at the Emirates today, in what wasn’t exactly a high quality game, but nor was it dull.
Read the report and watch goals and highlights here.
Here’s how the players rated today.
Arsenal beat Southampton 3-2 at the Emirates today, in what wasn’t exactly a high quality game, but nor was it dull.
Read the report and watch goals and highlights here.
Here’s how the players rated today.
Iwobi MOTM for me, played so much better than recently.
It’s funny cos just before we scored the first goal I was thinking to myself that Iwobi should be nowhere near the starting eleven and that he’s probably not good enough to be at Arsenal.. and then he made that neat pass to Welbeck for the first goal and had a great game after that.
Seems like he really is a confidence player. He finally reminded me what we saw in him when he first broke into the team.
In the second half. In the first half I thought he wasn’t really getting into the game (partly down to constant sideways passes of those behind him), and made a few bad decisions/passes when he did get the ball. I noticed because I like him and was playing close attention to his play, rooting for him to play well, but he still looked a player short of confidence. But in the second half, particularly after Nelson went off and he switched to the right wing, he came alive. Best bit of play from him in a long while, which is… Read more »
I think he enjoyed being out of Ozils shadow today. Just needs to somehow translate that when playing in the first team.
There are very few things one can enjoy more than Mark Hughes being upset.
First man to relegate two teams in one season might just make me spoof.
Fingers crossed
That match was like a David Lynch film. Little weird things happening throughout that kind of confuse you, then the ending completely fucks your mind in a way you suspect you may never recover from. Nice too see Iwobi play well though, hasn’t been great recently.
I felt like there was a point in me having watched this match, which I’d say contradicts your comparison somewhat.
Surely it only contradicts it for you though, unless you’re suggesting your opinion on Lynch’s films is the be all and end all of all opinions on them. I did find your comment amusing though, so I guess it had a point. Only definitively for me though, in the larger scheme of things it is utterly meaningless. As are all Lynch films, and everything else.
On the bright side, I had a lovely lasagna for dinner.
David Lynch has a knack of making the most mundane scene utterly terrifying without the viewer understanding why it’s so terrifying.
And then rendering it completely redundant when the film goes on a complete tangent later on for no apparent reason other than to showcase he director’s pretentiousness.
he may not have played well in your eyes but he always plays well in other peoples eyes, he is a class player
I gave you a thumbs up for positive comment on Iwobi. Its too easy to slag him off and many people do. (me included.) But with all due respect, he’s hardly a class player. He’s anything but class. Makes the wrong decision most of the time, followed by one or two really amazing things. Played very well yesterday. But his middle name is inconsistency. He’s nowhere close to a “replacement” for Mhkty at this point. I’m happy to be wrong about him. And if he scores the winner in any of these Europa league matches, then he’ll be a bloody… Read more »
Welbeck scored twice, Iwobi got 2 assist. I must still be dreaming.
Mark Hughes being unhappy is everyone else’s being excstatic
I think the 5 for Jack is overly flattering. It’s not just his performance today, but for a few of the last matches too. He should be in the mixes of passes instead of trying to dedicate the tempo. Am I the one one who finds him really slowing things down? We are in a better position before he replaces Nelson which I think he faired well. Jack gets to take control when he should have just take the quick simple passes instead. And many times we lost the procession because of him. I used to stand by him and… Read more »
So, it strikes me a little “off” (actually, a LOT off) to “rate” Wilshere’s performance in this match against Soton, based on alleged (allegedly wrong) issues against other teams in other matches.
Sure, once in a while Wilshere loses possession, or makes a misplaced pass – but the entire squad is guilty of that this campaign, and on a regular basis so to judge Wilshere harshy on it is subjective, random, nonsense. Most matches he’s driving the team forward looking for the forward pass – and not always successfully. Not exactly slowing things down either.
I guess it’s time to give him some rest
Mustafi is so frustrating. I think there is a good player in there but he has the most amount of brainfarts.
Thing is if there’s always a mistake in him that doesn’t exactly fill the team with confidence. I want him to be amazing but he just seems too prone to error. Confusing player.
It was the same story with Koscielny four years ago, especially when he was paired with Vermaelen. He only really settled when we paired him with Mertesacker – they covered for each others’ worst tendencies, enabling each to play to their strengths.
For the life of me, I don’t know why we went back to stocking up on aggressive front-foot defenders who love life in the oppo half. Get in a Mertesacker replacement and Mustafi will automatically look like 10 times the player he is now.
Arsenal have really good defenders, but they are not good together. I think it’s down to the lack of a defensive system. Either everybody back or everybody run to tackle the same player. When there is no division of labour, no clear roles or rules, nobody can play well.
It’s almost like they get absolutely no defensive coaching!
Bench Shkodran Mustafi!!
Can I suggest that this may not be as much on Mustafi as we may suggest. I think coaching is just as much to blame. Let me explain. 4 or 5 years ago we had great improvements in our defense (e.g. Koscielny, BFG, Monreal). Nowadays we have similar players with much promise… Bellerin, Chambers, and yes, even Mustafi (he’s still young for a central defender). But, we don’t see much improvements. Bellerin still has a rough time crossing, Mustafi has consistency issues, and Chambers is having trouble taking the next step up. I like Steve Bould, but could there be… Read more »
Steve Bould is not our defensive coach. Don’t know why eveyone thinks that. As well as Jens is not a goalie coach. They are both Arsene’s assistants.
Did wilshere kick their bloke that fit the red? If he did mariner Def didn’t see that and he could be in trouble. He was lucky.
Jack had a terrible game. His head is not in the right place.
Has it ever been? Injuries and headcase story of Jack’s career
He is crap…simples
Na just watch again. Kinda just walked into the back of him after the push. Was a heck of a shirt tug though
Which is a tactical foul and a rightful yellow, nothing more. But if I were a Southampton supporter I’d be apoplectic and consider Jack a punchable asshat.
Yeah…sorta…that was definitely more than a shirt pull. Technically, he pulled the shirt (yellow) and it didn’t work then he grabbed it two handed ripped it and stopped their guy (could be a second yellow). He was lucky…and stupid
wilshere deserved a red 10 times more than Elneny, was really p*ssed off seing wilshere asking him to calm down and to leave the pitch… feel sorry for that great lad!
I was thinking that the Jack-as-captain dream died today for many.
I’m baffled that anyone would want Wilshere to be captain to be honest
Same, Mr. Hoskins. He’s a fiery player, which is needed. That doesn’t make a great captain necessarily. He’s a little too immature for my taste. Not what you like to see out of a captain.
R u for real. Just look at PV4
More like are you for real! Did you watch PV4 as captain?
Tell me where you saw Vieria lack maturity. He’s actually the perfect example of a strong leader. Authoritative, intelligent, professional, knows when to push the right buttons with certain players, and hard working. Hes actually the type of character we desparately need in the squad. Ramsey may be the closest we have to this but, alas, Vieria’s don’t grow on trees.
Ahh, the rose colored glasses come out.
Things were better “back then.”
No one made any mistakes “back then.”
Henry never missed sitters “back then.”
PV never, ever went blood red “back then.”
Ha. Live in the fantasy land if you want, but it doesn’t make it real.
Second that. Ramsey is our Captain in waiting. But we need to wait until we get him signed. Fu$king annoying how little stock Wenger puts into the captaincy these days. Especially in this team of precious little egos. Man we need to sign a leader or two. I actually really like Ozil calling out Bellerin the other night that he expects better. We need more of that enough of this “lets be best friends” squad mentality…more “let’s fu$king win and if you don’t put in the effort then that is fu$king weak and not good enough” mentality
Something tells meet that the red card is going to make Elneny very popular.
Apart from the poor defending (Mustafi!), it all started going badly when Wilshere replaced Nelson. Though Nelson was, admittedly, unspectacular, he made no mistakes and did quite well; Wilshere did nothing, lost the ball too often, and was clearly frustrated at his own poor form.
As for Mustafi, it’s no good being reliable 70-80% of the time, when the rest of the time he’s too often responsible for allowing goals or big chances. Sad to say, he’s more of a liability than an asset.
I think you mean unreliable 70-80% of the time mike.
Absolutely agree. Sure, he can have good games, but the bad games are absolutely abject and is normally the reason we implode against these types of teams.
I think Blogs is being a little harsh on Chambers with his rating too. Thought he was alright today, alongside a woeful Mustafi. Generally marshalled Long pretty well and was calm on the ball.
I would love it if Chambers and Holding could become a really solid CB pairing. They’ve got the ability, but they need to be coached better.
I think Holding is the best of those three and I really don’t care if he’s a german international who cost us 35 million. Mustafi is the worst defender we have.
I am generally one of Mustafi’s defenders, and I still think over the course of the season he is a much better player than many supporters are ready to admit. But he was terrible today, at least in the first half.
I also think he is rather good. He has a wide area of action and often makes intelligent passes too.
In order for Chambers and Holding to form a defensive pairing they need to play together and with the league being something of a non event except perhaps for pride then this is the ideal time to put them together, accept they will make mistakes at first and encourage rather than get on their backs I’m including the fans and other players in this both have the talent but you cannot coach experience is also be giving the likes of Willock ,AMN, Nelson and Nekitiah premier league playing time ,also what happened to the Greek defender who Wenger decided was… Read more »
He’s trying to do too much. Instead of laying off a simple pass he’s trying to beat men and runs into trouble
To say Nelson made no mistakes is wrong, he gave the ball away quite a few times, but other than that had a solid enough debut. I wouldn’t expect much more from a first start in the prem at his age.
I agree, Nelson made quite a few mistakes, losing possession quite carelessly. Iwobi also, until the later parts of the game when he switched on some style. That cross he put in reminded me of Sanchez.
Strangely I never doubted we’d win that game (but I wasn’t expecting a Welbz double!)
Good to see some fight in this team and glad we we could rest our players. That said we really need some major surgery this summer which hopefully means Mustafi is soldnpost haste.
Don’t know about that to be honest. Mertesacker will be gone, Koscielny turns 33 at the start of the season and with his achilles problems won’t be able to play 50 + games a season. If we also sell Mustafi we only have Chambers and Holding and I don’t know if it’s a great idea to be in need of buying 2-3 defenders in one transfer window. Mustafi can be hugely frustrating at times but I still have the feeling he can be a very good defender. Koscielny had his problems in the first 1-2 seasons, too. Think we should… Read more »
What’s up with Wilshere? He was good when the season started, now he seems to make many mistakes, loses the ball, and then has the gall to tell Elneny to calm down after the red in a situation which was created by him.
In fairness to Wilshere you can’t pin Elneny’s red on him! It was just plain daft to push the Soton block in the face.
Fair point, loose_cannon.
I think at the beginning of the season he benefited from playing intermittently, and against weaker teams, in the Europa league and also people having lower expectations because he’d been out so long.
Weaker teams like Chelsea and Liverpool? He’s certainly in a shocking run atm but he’s also played very well against strong opposition this season. He’s dipped massively since the international break, not sure why though.
He just isn’t that good man. Inconsistent. Still a head case. Thinks he is better than he is. Overrated. If we are ever going to get back to where we should be then someone like Jack Wilshere should not be a starting midfielder in our team. People say this has been a good season for him…that says everything for me. Because if this is good then its SO clear his “good” is not “good” enough for Arsenal.
“Hit the road Jack, don’t ya come back no more no more no more no more”
I think Wilshere is much slower than he was 4-5 years ago. But he is brave. He dares to hold the ball – not many of our players do that. He doesn’t implode when things don’t go our way. He is a fighter where we seem to have too many intellectuals. But right now, he needs some rest, some technical training and our support:)
He doesn’t seem to handle the pressure – of stalled contract talks, the need to force himself back into permanent first team status (much of which is self-created – very well at all. Today’s display, born of frustration at a poor performance, was a reminder of Wilshere at his worst. I suspect Wenger has been dangling the captaincy as a non-monetary carrot, but it’s hard to see him in that role any more.
Don’t you think this whole contract saga is partly to blame for his dip in form?
Wilshere being judged harshly on here as well. Perhaps its because expectations are so high for him, not a terrible thing really.
But Jack has played a lot in the last few months. Probably on the worn out side. The contract BS is surely in the back of his mind (as a professional athlete with a family always being judged in the papers and by know-nothings like us all the time) perhaps we give the player — ya know, the guy who is Arsenal thru and thru and is in fact an Arsenal player now … a little slack, eh?
Please appeal the Elneny red card. What did he even do?
Wilshere, he is struggling physically and mentally. I really think we should just let him walk and upgrade. AMN or Elneny will make up for his absence.
On to Russia! Bring a food tester to make sure they don’t poison us. I nominate John Terry!
He pushed a guy in the face. Pathetic, but letter of the law type stuff. Pointless appealing.
Mariner probably thought he was sending off Iwobi.
There was so much pushing going on, why the referee singled out Elneny is inexplicable.
Ok it’s a red card by the letter of the law but the letter of the law is shit.
Challenges which actually risk damage like that rake down the back of Nelson’s achilles by Tadic go unpunished, but a half-hearted push that wouldn’t hurt a fly gets a red card. It’s so backwards and encourages play acting.
Absolutely no chance of it being overturned. Rules written and enforced by morons
I don’t think the letter of the law is the problem so much as the power of the refs to selectively apply the law.
I agree Tadic should’ve probably been sent off for his first nasty challenge, and got away with another later in the game. Made me mad, and I wish someone would’ve returned the favor.
Disagree on Elneny — one of the worst decisions I’ve seen of late, compounded by the fact that it came right after he gave Wilshere a yellow just moments before. Completely unable to reconcile how he can give that a yellow and Elneny a red when he didn’t really do anything. And personally I like that he was there to back us up. Aren’t we always complaining that our players don’t stick up for each other in these situations?
Welbeck’s miss was astonishing, even by his standards, but don’t forget his beautiful flick for Aubameyang’s goal, besides the two of his own.
I wonder if our players communicate did Laccazette let Welbeck know he was in a better position as Welbz had a keeper rushing at him? Did he not hear a call of ” my ball Danny ” ? Was he not aware of his surroundings or was it just a desire to score himself but a lack of composure? Hell he only had to let the ball hit him and it would have gone in !! Good overall performance from Welbeck though one of his best for us so you have to forgive him for the miss whatever the reasons.
People forget Freddie’s impossible miss at Bolton? Credit Welbeck for scoring :https://youtu.be/xuIqr5nFssQ
Danny Welbeck is a mystery.
Maybe they reattached his knee backwards after his last surgery or something, allowing him to do wonderfully strange flicks and odd unintentional finishes but also resulting in him shanking sitters from two yards. I mean, if your knee was attached backwards, you’d probably do the same, right?
Xhaka had some nice touches today but I don’t think I’ve watched an Arsenal game this season where he hasn’t given the ball aware more than once unnecessarily. It’s a bit of a handicap. So glad we did didn’t drop points to this mob today!
He wasn’t the only one who gave the ball away a lot.
Nobody exactly shone today (apart from Welbz perhaps).
Good to win without risking Ozil, Kos or Ramsey. Jack needs to be brought off the limelight for his own sake. Iwobi has got to improve on his decisions in the final third. All in all, a great way to prepare for CSKA away.
I hope Mkhi makes it
Imagine getting rid of both The Orchs and Mark Hughes in one season. That really is something to celebrate.
Lacazette would have been heavily involved had Welbeck not cleared that ball off the Soton goal line from a yard away; he was wide open and would have tucked it away.
And later on he made a delicious turn near midfield that kept the Saints from keeping the pressure on.
A 5 for Wilshere is incredibly generous
Welbeck MOTM, a player that’s been heavily criticised this season (definitely from me!) so happy for him. He’ll never be the most graceful or skilful but he’s a real handful when he puts himself about like that in and around the box. I disagree with his rating a little, part of the reason he did well today is because he focused less on defence than usual. Instead he devoted more of his energy going forward, he needs to do that more
I wouldn’t criticise Elneny for his red red. We were too soft for too long and it’s good to see players like him and Xhaka finding some attitude again.
It was actually Kolasinac who first got between Jack and the Southampton player and made it clear he would have none of that.
if only just Hughes could get relegated. (I don’t really have anything against Saints in general)
Mustafi is just shite..Players make mistakes but the frequency of his mistakes are mind blowing, up their with Titus Bramble for comical defending leading to goals. Constantly diving in even without sliding (How?) see what he did to Tadic..Does that stupidity 10x a game. Along with the constant mistakes his passing is fucking shambolic..and the fact he tried to pass the blame onto Cech shows the character of the man. How people are still blinded by him because he is a German international and we had a half decent run when he first arrived…wake up. He was exposed against Bayern… Read more »
I agree, but apparently such views are censored around here.
The fact that iamarsenal just wrote that means that no, such views are not “censored” around here. The commented just posed it, you saw it and responded. In fact, I see it too. Now, such comments may meet with disagreement, derision, mocking, and general ball-busting — all of which are proper and, in fact, encouraged on a football comment site. But censored…no. And its a myopic comment to boot. Mustafi has had many games where he played well. Yesterday wasn’t one of them. He’s not perfect. Can everyone put the knives back in against our own players? Guns out and… Read more »
The composition of today’s squad was such that I felt we were going to struggle somewhat and it was a rum thing in the end to come away with victory. 1) Cech – Decent. Some good saves which should have served as warning shots as is for the lads…alas not too well heeded. 2) Bellerin – Again OK. Struggled at times and not working the pace as much as he should. Likely conserving for midweek. 3) Mustafi. Have been defending him but he did some atrocious defending today with that gift to Soton. When in doubt, clear. Also something about… Read more »
Welbeck 9?? Elneny 9 for me.
Seemed as if Jekel started instead of Shkodran again today.
Jack needs to lose some size. He’s lost his pace. He has bodybuilder size quads these days and he just doesn’t need to.
Thought Iwobi was excellent today. Involved in all of our best football. Also, appreciated El Neny today (aside from the rather stupid red card). He moves the ball wisely and quickly. Makes him an effective, even if less than flashy, member of the engine room in midfield. Think he is under-rated.
Am I the only one who was totally cheesed off with Wenger taking off Aubamanayang when he brought on Laccazette? Auba doesn’t need the rest and against Stoke him and Lacca seemed to be starting to form what could be a devastating partnership ! I’d have replaced Nelson with Lacca and left Jack on the bench ! Also WHY is it we always seem to go through periods of a game where our defending becomes panicky and common sense disappears? We then compound this by sitting deeper and deeper leaving ourselves with no outlet to break and relieve pressure !… Read more »
u guys know the rapper 6IX9INE? he got a chorus line “Niggas iffy, uh, Blicky got the stiffy, uh”. everytime i see mustafi.
You missed a few points for our boys clearing off the line. That’s worth a goal as a defender.