By Tony Attwood
- Southampton v Arsenal: Saints are not the worst ever Premier League Team
- 17 players Arsenal want to sign, 4 who want to leave.
While there is no doubt that the results in the last ten games or so in the league have been disappointing, the reason for the Arsenal downturn is easy to see. The two games against Paris St Germain which both ended in defeat, had in between them the ludicrous home loss to Bournemouth. But the away draw with Liverpool which followed that and the home win against Newcastle in the last match, surely must have helped restore confidence a little.
And there can be no doubt from this that if Arsenal do want to try and make it to the final of the Champions League next season the depth of the squad must be improved.
However, this is not the same as simply saying “buy a centre forward”. For it means having players who not only can replace the first-choice man when he is injured or off form, but also players who will accept a certain amount of rotation through the season. But such players are hard to find. “I’m playing well, why drop me?” is a phrase often heard and it needs to be fought from the start.
Arsenal led the way in finding a way to deal with the League Cup by playing a reserve team in its games – and the strengthening of the squad can lead to progress beyond the semi-finals of the Champions League – which is where a loss of confidence seemed to seep into the squad this season.
So the Southampton game tomorrow will give Arsenal a chance to explore its squad options to some degree as the home side will contemplate how on earth they can return to the form of the previous season and try and give their supporters something to cheer in 2025/26.
Although leaving aside their current form, Southampton’s past record against Arsenal, doesn’t really offer much in the way of hope. Arsenal have beaten the Saints 54 times and lost 23, with 30 draws along the way although maybe they will take a little hope from the last dozen games between the two in which Arsenal have won just five, three have been Southampton wins and four have been draws.
Worse, of the last four games between the two, Arsenal have won only one. And if we just look at games at St Mary’s, Arsenal have only knocked up two wins, a 1-2 victory in 2020 and a 1-3 in 2021. So although the league table makes everything look simple, this might not quite be the case.
Southampton’s problems however are easy to understand: they, like so many other clubs, keep changing managers. In fact since Ralph Hasenhüttl left in November 2022 they have had seven managers, of whom one has been called a “caretaker” and three have been designated “Interim managers”. One of their managers, Russell Martin won the EFL Championship play-offs but still only lasted 18 months. On 2 July 2024, he signed a three-year contract extension and then five and a half months later he was sacked after the club lost to Tottenham. It doesn’t seem to have done the club much good, and must have impacted their bank balance.
Of course, the 32,000 capacity stadium could be seen as a reason for Southampton’s lack of success but then again Bournemouth, just along the south coast, has an 11,000 capacity ground and they are surviving, so ground size is not everything.
However a comparison of the last three seasons shows just how big the gap between the Premier League and the Championship has become.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20th | Southampton 2025 | 37 | 2 | 6 | 29 | 25 | 84 | -59 | 12 |
| 4th | Southampton 2024 | 46 | 26 | 9 | 11 | 87 | 63 | 24 | 87 |
| 20th | Southampton 2023 | 38 | 6 | 7 | 25 | 36 | 73 | -37 | 25 |
And of course, this is emphasised by looking at the top four for last season in the Championship and noting that the three promoted teams last season have all been relegated again this season….
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leicester City | 46 | 31 | 4 | 11 | 89 | 41 | 48 | 97 |
| 2 | Ipswich Town | 46 | 28 | 12 | 6 | 92 | 57 | 35 | 96 |
| 3 | Leeds United | 46 | 27 | 9 | 10 | 81 | 43 | 38 | 90 |
| 4 | Southampton | 46 | 26 | 9 | 11 | 87 | 63 | 24 | 87 |
However this of course is excellent news for clubs like Tottenham Hots and Manchester United as by and large it means no matter how bad their performances in the Premier League each season (and you may recall that they are currently 16th and 17th in the Premier League) they can be pretty sure that the promoted clubs will help to prop them up at the bottom of the table.
As for the Championship, the top three (Leeds, Burnley, Sheffield United) have a certain familiarity with the Premier League, although again that won’t guarantee longevity (nor indeed promotion, as Sheffield United battle Sunderland in the play-off final this afternoon).
