Arsenal v Southampton: all the news you need and quite a bit you don’t.

Posted on by Tony Attwood

By Tony Attwood

For once I am not going to the game – having a few days in the wild windy weather of the Norfolk coast.  And believe me it is windy.  So good luck to whoever bought my ticket through the official ticket exchange.  (It actually sold in 10 minutes flat, so clearly the demand for tickets is still there).

Today there is a headline in the Telegraph today which says, “Relive all the action from deadline day at Arsenal,” but I think that’s pushing it a bit, especially when there is a game to play.  But the press and the bloggettas invest everything in the wholly false notion that transfers mean something, so I suppose they have to start the build up to the summer transfer window now.

Meanwhile we have the tragic news that Rosicky is injured once again, and a suggestion in one source that Coquelin is injured as well, but I can’t see any confirmation of that, so I think that one it is just a mistake.  Rosicky though may now be lost to us for good.

Alexis Sanchez looked good in the Cup, Mohamed Elneny looked very promising, and when you look at the squad it actually looks like a rather sound 20 players (21 if Coquelin is fit), without including any of the injured group (Santi, Jack and Danny).  Not bad since even with the beach provisions we can only name 18 of them.   The choice is from…

Cech, Ospina, Monreal, Gibbs, Koscielny, Gabriel, Mertesacker, Bellerin, Chambers, Ramsey, Elneny, Flamini, Ozil, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Reine-Adelaide, Iwobi, Sanchez, Campbell, Walcott, Giroud (Coquelin).

Southampton have got Charlie Austin who could make his first start for the club having been a sub and scoring against Manchester United.

They have injuries too: Graziano Pelle and Steven Davis are doubtful.  Jay Rodriguez, Florin Gardos can’t make it.

Speaking of this game and the coming weeks Mr Wenger said, “They can be pivotal but not decisive. They will give a clear indication of the strength of the teams and who can cope with the importance of the games. At the end of the day somebody will win and the team who will win has to go through the important games with strong performances.”

Southampton of course are crowing about the fact they have beaten us rather a lot recently.  “We showed we can be competitive against them and a very hard team to beat. We would like that again on Tuesday,”  were the words of Ronald Koeman.

In the press there is the usual gibberish about how we have not spent “serious money”… which means that the money we spent on Mo (lower than might have been expected because he wasn’t spotted by other clubs) was “silly money” I suppose.  Or “flippant money.”  And this is “a major disappointment to a large percentage of the club’s fanbase.”   Oh.  The stats the same paper collected showed that the vast majority only wanted one signing – a little strengthening of the squad was all that was needed.  And that is what we got.

Which makes me rather pleased this window business is all over until…. oh I guess Thursday, when it all starts again.   I think I will ask Sir Hardly to do us a quick report on what his favourite bloggettas are saying when the transfer window is dead and gone.

But back to the football (thank goodness).  We have four Premier League games, a the little matter of matches against Hull and Barcelona.   We’ve had our blip of three without a win in the league, and now we’ve got key players back, so it should be time to start motoring.

More from Mr Wenger…

“I don’t feel that we have really struggled recently because we had two difficult away games with Stoke and Liverpool and we didn’t lose. We had a bad result against Chelsea and of course, if you put the three results together, it looks like we’ve struggled but overall the Chelsea result is under special circumstances.”

Now I love that last phrase… “under special circumstances”.  It means “we played the referee as usual” but is circumspect enough so he can claim it means “we went down to 10 men as usual against Chelsea.”

And despite all the worries and concerns about Southampton being such a hard team to beat for Arsenal, the fact is that Arsenal are unbeaten in 20 league matches at home to Southampton.   The last disappointment was a 1-0 defeat in November 1987, and since then we have won 15 and drawn 5.

What makes it feel much worse is that Southampton won at the Ems in the League Cup last season.  If Southampton did win tonight, and I doubt that very much, it would be the first time they have recorded three successive league wins against us since the time of Alfred the Great (who actually lived in Winchester not Southampton, but it is near enough).   Or at least the first time since 1968.

Here’s another one: we have not lost consecutive home games since November 2010.   And the last time we went two games without scoring was in January/February 2009, which actually when I look back on it, wasn’t quite as painful as it sounds.

On the other hand Mr Wenger has only beaten Mr Koeman twice in ten games as Arsenal manager (the others being four draws and four defeats).  Time for all this nonsense to stop, says I.   Not least because Alexis Sanchez has scored in both of his games against Southampton at the Ems and it is time for him to be back to knocking in a goal a game.

Southampton are on a bit of a roll having won three successive league games without conceding, and indeed their defensive game meant that their opponents got three shots on target in those four league games.    When they do attack, they play in crosses and tend to score from headers, which is why having Koscielny and Mert in the team is helpful.

Incidentally the Guardian did a report on the top 100 players in the world for 2015 and included Koscielny at number 100.  Not bad for an unknown player who joined us after playing 35 times for Lorient for around £8.5m, and that just four years after sitting on the bench in the second division of French football.    And yes that is the top 100 in the WORLD.

(I put that in caps for my mate Ian who said in one match, “He’s obviously not good enough.”  I’ve been reminding him of it ever since.  Probably why I don’t have many friends.)

So it is going to be

Cech

Bellerin  Mert Kos Monreal

Ramsey Elneny

Campbell Ozil Alexis

Giroud

Which leaves out Coquelin (in case he is injured, but on as a sub if not), Theo as a sub for Campbell, the Ox as a sub for Alexis.  I can’t see Coquelin making two starts in the course of four days after such an injury and an early return.  Flamini could go in next to Ramsey, and if Mr Wenger thinks that extra steel is needed there, he might do that.

The full beach will be Coquelin, Theo, the Ox, Iwobi, Flamini, Gibbs, Oooooospina.

Here’s the Whoscored.com top ten rankings for teams – our position is interesting given we’ve had a dodgy run in January…

R Team Shots pg Discipline Possession% PassSuccess% AerialsWon Rating
1 Arsenal 14.9 213 55.4 84.2 14.5 7.05
2 Leicester 13.3 350 44.0 69.7 18.2 7.02
3 Manchester City 17.5 390 55.3 83.8 15 7.01
4 Tottenham 16.3 460 54.9 80.3 15 7.01
5 Everton 13.1 312 51.8 82.5 12.6 6.91
6 West Ham 13.2 304 47.2 76.5 18 6.90
7 Southampton 13.9 353 50.7 78.0 19.8 6.89
8 Liverpool 16.4 421 54.4 79.0 19 6.84
9 Watford 11.8 432 46.1 72.4 16.7 6.84
10 Chelsea 13.8 383 54.8 82.0 15.6 6.82

You’ll notice the “aerials won” score for Southampton.  That’s what we have to watch out for.

And here’s the league table, just in case you’ve forgotten what with all that excitement about transfers and so forth.

Pos CLUB P W D L F A GD Pts
1 Leicester City 23 13 8 2 42 26 16 47
2 Money money money 23 13 5 5 45 23 22 44
3 Arsenal 23 13 5 5 37 22 15 44
4 Tiny Totts 23 11 9 3 41 19 22 42
5 Manchester Ooops 23 10 7 6 28 21 7 37
6 State Aid United 23 9 9 5 36 28 8 36
7 Liverpool! 23 9 7 7 30 32 -2 34
8 Southampton 23 9 6 8 32 24 8 33
9 Rugby 23 9 6 8 24 25 -1 33
10 Watford 23 9 5 9 27 26 1 32

And here are two more anniversaries

  • 2 February 2001: Arsène Wenger successfully appealed against a 12 match ban for violent and threatening behaviour against referee Taylor, but still has to pay costs on the grounds that he should have presented all the evidence at the first hearing!
  • 2 February 2002: Arsenal 1 Southampton 1.  Through this draw Arsenal broke the  consecutive goal scoring record, scoring in 26 consecutive games, and then went on to win every single league game.   League match 25 of the 3rd Double season.

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(PS if you are submitting an article for publication this week please do send it to TonyAttwoodofLondon@gmail.com not the usual addresses)

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102 Replies to “Arsenal v Southampton: all the news you need and quite a bit you don’t.”

  1. Yup ! Its back to collecting them points again time . Come on guys ,do you stuff.
    “Git-R-Done!”
    Up the Gunners !

  2. hopefully back to winning ways.
    OT, but I am told today is Groundhog Day. I wish everyone a happy Groundhog Day, it must be something to do with Arsenal FC, as the AAA go on about it all the time

  3. Tony
    I love this line: “But the press and the bloggettas invest everything in the wholly false notion that transfers mean something…”

    100% spot on. This is the price you pay with the rise of the Fantasy Football Fan and social media anonymity. They all come out to play.

    The truth of the matter is that their noses are out of joint and they have to look for a negative in everything. This is why so many were unable to celebrate the FA Cup wins as any normal fan & why every win is treated with indifference. Truly bizarre. So the transfer window gives them an excuse to continue their whines and moans with like minded individuals.

    I can tell you that the members of the ‘wenger out blog’ are absolutely obsessed by transfers and yesterdays transfer window. According to the Fantasy Football Accountants we have around £100 – £200 million burning a hole in our pockets (the same people who thought the stadium and Highbury development was paid for from the money trees growing at Highbury Fields). However, due to ‘dithering’, ‘bad management’, ‘stingyness’ and Wenger ‘hating’ to win trophies he wouldnt spend it!

    There is much sadness and anger over the fact their latest idol, Pep, is off to mega rich Man City. This has replaced the sadness and anger over Klopp not coming to Arsenal and the claims that the board should consider Gary Monk! Recycle, repeat when Simeone comes over and joins Chelsea.

    It is all a bit surreal. Every signing they want us to make is assumed to be available, terms will be agreed and there is supposed to be a 100% guarantee they will be the great player they claim. They will also be made of rubber, so they wont be injured by Arsene or our medical team.

    Extremely funny when you consider they were demanding the like of Balotelli, Benteke, Falcao, Di Maria, Negredo have all been on the FFM’s shopping list. We can add the fake angst when Scneirderlein didnt arrive and when MAN Utd signed the German world cup winner Schweinsteiger it was more of the same.

    If only Carling made Fantasy Football Games…….!

  5. Proudkev
    We all celebrated the Fa cup wins and they were an acievement as we hadnt won a tophy in over a decade,but do you not think now we should be pushing on and doing our upmost to challenge for the bigger prizes with the wealth at our disposal.Do you not think now with the champions league money ,the extra premier league money and our matchday money and sponsorship we dont have those sort of figures to spend??And because the likes of schneidererlin hasnt been a world beater so far with utd doesnt mean he would of flopped here .He is a damn site better player than flamini that is for sure.We certainly arent going to challenge any of the best in eurpoe with a 5m signing here and a free transfer there.

  6. I will take just the 1-0 to the Arsenal. Just to bring us back to winning ways. I think Leicester will draw today

  7. Tony of topic but am I right in thinking you drive in to matches ,and park near Archway , if so are you aware they’ve just started an 18 month re-development of the Archway Island , the plan is to completely change it .
    Day two and apparently it’s a nightmare . Beware !

  8. Judge, yes I am aware of that, have been seeing the development of the area around the station. But when I travel that way I park at Finchley Central, get the tube to Archway and then walk down Holloway Road. Its about 2 miles to the ground, and I break it with a visit to The Swimmer on Hercules Road, so the traffic changes at Archway don’t affect me.

    However as Blacksheep has himself moved house, the routine is starting to change – and that’s no bad thing!

    But thanks for your concern.

  9. The most important thing on this night at d Ems is for Arsenal to beat Southampton to collect all the 3 points that will be at stake in the match.

    Arsenal have the Gunners capacity and a great partisan home support to deal with Ronald Koeman’s Saints side and wathever game application plan they have on offer.

    Oga(Master) Tony, your starts are irresistibly accepted. But the Boss may do 1 or 2 changes to them. Have I seen him starting Walcott ahead of Campbell, and starting Flamini alongside bombing forward Ramsey instead of starting Elneny if Coquelin can’t start? I think the Boss might do that.

    Nevertheless, whoever be the Gunner the Boss is starting for this semi-big game MUST convert his chances that will surely fall to him and not waste them.

    For a certainty, the Gunners will create many goal scoring chances during the course of this match. But will they convert those chances availed themselves into goals to beat d Saints 5-0 to make them pay for the 4 sins they committed against Arsenal last time?

  10. “We certainly arent going to challenge any of the best in eurpoe with a 5m signing”
    John.

    That’s a very interesting statement. It is like saying,

    “We certainly arent going to challenge any of the best in eurpoe with a player who cost us nothing.”

    Like Coquelin. Like Bellerin. Both free.
    Like Koscielny who cost a little more, £8.5m, and is now in the top 100 players in the world according to the Guardian.
    Like Ramsey £4.8m

    OK John you continue to believe in the transfer market and the fact that it means something. I’ve given everything I’ve got to trying to prove otherwise, but you haven’t changed your mind.

    Or Nacho Monreal. £8.3m.

    Or Santi Cazorla. £9.5m

    Or Gibbs. Or …..

    OK, I can offer no more.

  11. Pleasantly surprised to read that Mertesacker may be selected to play this evening.
    I thought a straight red usually meant a 3-match ban.
    No doubt Walter will put me right. 😉

  12. John, we are spending – on our wage bill, and paying competitive wages improves player retention.

  13. John – you celebrate trophies. I celebrate our style, our tolerance, our resilience & the way we win despite handicaps.

    Learn to celebrate life & not only occassions. Learn to celebrate the best football playing team in the EPL. Learn to celebrate the Arsenal.

    A$ for spending money – can you tell me when you last bought Arsenal kit or a ticket to a game?

  14. Ticket going spare (last minute cancellation) if someone can get here in next hour. Lower tier, row 10.

  16. John.

    We won the double with a £500,000 centre forward.

    Man Utd wont win the league with a £250m investment, in fcat they may not even qualify for the Champions League (again). They certainly won’t win the league with a £52m Di Maria.

    I am not saying world class players dont improve your team, of course they should. But judging players by transfer fee is flawed logic.

    The fact so many of the WOB’s jumped on Elnenys back after his debut, was predictable. The same for Coquelin. Schneiderlein looks lost, some players stand out in weaker teams but fail to step up. Some players come to the Premier League and cannot adapt. No guarantees.

    When Wenger was given some money, he spent £45 million on Ozil and £35m on Sanchez. Unlike a lot of big money signings, these two have performed at the level expected and above.

    This ten years taunt does my nut in. Recycled into oblivion with no effort to compare apples with apples. It is mind blowing ignorance. It never ceases to amaze me how many fans cannot do basic mathematics or basic economics. Must all live in £2m mansions while earning £15,000 a year.

    How the hell could we compete financially with Man City, Chelsea and Man Utd? Let alone while we was repaying the stadium and Highbury…! This is what annoys me, fans who completely ignore the situation we were in and refuse to accept the plain truth. Some talk and blog about the ten years as if Wenger deliberatley decided not to spent the hundreds of millions the other clubs were splashing. He didnt have it to spend. It is bizarre that you can look at the Emirates in all its magnificence and walk around the flats at Highbury and beleive we still had reserves to compete with Chelsea, Man City, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. You laud managers like Guardiola, Mourinho and Ferguson – all managed their clubs with financial benefits Wenger could only dream of. WOB’s slag the players we used to have (like Denilson for example) yet seem unable to reconcile the fact that we were finishing 3rd or 4th with what WOB’s described as crap players and a crap manager, just behind teams that were spending many times more than us.

    I agree with you that we now have money to spend. In fact, as soon as we had money to spend Wenger bought Ozil in. I do expect us to start spending money and I do expect us to improve the squad. However, I wont be demanding we sign players like Balotelli, Falcao etc like a lot of the FFM because I’m not daft enough to think I am a professional football manager or that I am a better judge of player or personalities.

    I went onto the wenger out blog after we won the FA CUp in May, it was like a bloody morgue. The amount of moaning because the win would mean Wenger stays was incredible. My wife just laughed and said it was a Spurs blog but the sad fact is that some of them appeared to be Gooners.

    I recall getting home after the game against Man Utd at the Emirates and looking at teh various Arsenal blogs. The WOB one was interesting. When the 3rd goal went in some fans had typed the word ‘bollocks’ while others moaned it would give Wenger credit…! Give Man Utd a good hiding and the WOB’s are still moaning. Why? Because their precious Wenger Out agenda hits the buffers and thats far more important than an Arsenal win. Unbeleivable.

    I have no idea how some fans minds work, all I will say is they are pathetic. Constant moaning, never happy and a bloody embarrassing for the rest of us to have fans like that associated to the club.

    I am not saying you are one of those John but trying to explain why the ten years mantra gets up my nose and why I dont beleive anything we achieve will ever placate some fans. Its wenger out or nothing for some and a blind refusal to remove their heads from their arse.

    No easy games in the Premier League and Southampton are a good side. Players back now, so Two nil to the good guys.

    I hope Elneny plays.

  18. Hmmm,,, not very good as a team predictor am I.

    I thought Mert got a one match suspension and served it in the FA Cup. So did he get more than one or doesn’t the FA cup count?

  21. Sorry Tony, Per is on the bench/beach. Not still banned, as I thought (or rather wrote, without thinking enough).

    Colario, every once in a while I get tired of writing code or debugging stuff, and look at the news. I am not as good as Brickfields at jokes, but I hope to bring smiles to people (most of the time).

    COYG!

  23. @proudkev

    Please, check United stats with and without Schneiderlin.

    We have missed the trick with him. I hope Arsene will fix that one in the summer when the major overhaul at United will begin.

  33. slightest touch on a saint & a foul is given. Arsenal players pushed consistently & kicked without a whistle. oooops he saw one!!!

  34. We’ve to ditch political correctness and call a spade a spade; this is fucking cheating by the pgmob! Alexis gets fouled and when he tries to get up quickly a Southampton player trying to jump over him trips over and that’s deemed a foul??? So what’s Alexis supposed to do, continue lying on the ground?? He didnt even try to stay on the ground coz he knew he was never going to get a free kick after he’d been shoved to the ground a few minutes earlier with nothing doing. ..He just tries to get up and get on with it, and gets penalised for it?! This is a fucking joke.

  39. Seems like you’re watching a different game to Phil Thompson lads.

    HT 0-0

    and Southampton have had the better chances.

    Hasn’t been a foul during the entire first half either by the sounds of it.

    Hmmmmm.

  40. When I’m at the game, I get abuse from some of our ‘fans’ because I see the cheating & call it. These youngsters have grown up with it & think it is part of the game. They blame Wenger for coaching our players to be soft. If Arsenal players push like the Southampton ones, there will be wholesale complaints by the Daily Loo paper.

  41. 46 mins and 46 fouls by Southampton to ours 8… Ie 1 foul a minute and no cards yet!!!!!.

    Stats from @Orbinho

  42. Hahahahahahahaha… Ohhkkay..

    Hez corrected it. Its 6 fouls by Southampton. To ours 8.

  48. The usual chat with the player oh he’s a Southampton player. If he were Arsenal it would be a card. Commentator is the usual thick idiot talking ballocks.

  57. Giroud has his shirt ripped and the ref doesn’t give the penalty? Oh dear oh dear oh dear

  58. Player down but time wasting allowed. THe player can easily move off the pitch. But a wholescale operation is taking place on him wasting time. Player injured by team mates elbow.

  59. I’m not an expert on the rules but i’m pretty sure if the ref hasn’t “seen” the foul then he couldn’t then give the pen retrospectively based on a ripped shirt

  60. That is utterly pathetic of the ref. 4+ minutes for the player to receive treatment two yards from being off the pitch. Is he to delicate to move, I DON’T THINK SO.

    *ref standing beside the injured player having a drink of Lucozade*

    You couldn’t make it up!

  61. Its Wenger fault, the shirt desigb makes it get pulled easily…. No not a foul no….F*** this!

  63. he even had to go and move the ball 2 inches back before Ozil could take a freekick! this is outrageous

  66. What acheating MF cu&t Mason is. Book Coq for his first foul while several worse Saint fouls were let off.

  68. Must be bad. Even Phil Tompson couldn’t believe it.

    As well as not being able to believe we haven’t scored.

    Come on lads.

  71. Southamptons best player was Lee Mason. He cheated his way through to ensure Arsenal didn’t win.

  72. We have just seen why we will not win this league, cheating refs. He even blew the final whistle while Monreal’s cross was in flight into the box…

  73. We will not win the league with this kind of of match officials. It’s just not our luck I guess..

  74. Between the ref and us not having a bona fide striker this result was always on the cards. FFS the Spuds are now above us. I can’t believe how lame we are in front of goal.

  75. Can’t believe the ref blew dead on 6 minutes when we had a ball floating into goal especially after the time wasting of the not-so saints!

  79. If you listen to hillier from the Arsenal player commentary it’s clear and undeniable that this was a titled performance from the pgMOB official representative. As expected cheating through the application of two different codes. It’s the consistency of the cheating that is remarkable and so we here remark upon it.
    That the officials cheating and the irate crowd (towards the official) dominated the Player plunditary early on and then consistently tells you all you need to know.

    Note for the troll: D.Hillier was and is no shrinking violet simply calling what he sees. And he was trying very hard to be balanced. Unlike the pgMOB official.

    we know how horse racing fans feel.

  80. Mason got in trouble when he didn’t send coq off last Aug.
    This was him saying sorry to his bosses.
    We will not be allowed to win this league.

    That aside, tho no lack of effort, we had enough chances to score several times.
    And our set pieces, especially corners are something approaching shocking.
    We are going to get no help from the pgmol, but surely we can help ourselves more than we did tonite.
    Tomorrow you will read about a shift in the north London balance of power. The media aaa and pgmol will love that……but there is more to come this season, except sadly I am convinced we will not be allowed to win it, and am sure the club execs if not the manager lack the will to take this on.
    Football is fixed stating Leicester getting the biggest positive bias with refs he has seen in the pl era.

  81. Two horse ? race. City and spurs. We are dog ? poo ?. Not a single goal against this Southampton side in 180 mins. Well done Wenger and Co, your dream for top four will be secured hopefully.

  83. This was the worst and most corrupt refereeing I have seem outside the Champions League. Well let’s get all the evidence and get these cheating scum referees out of the game for good. Lee Mason is not a man – he’s a pathetic little shite and anyone watching that game knows it. How the hell they get one yellow after that, only the corrupt and mentally deficient PGMOL know. Let him explain himself. He tells Ozil off for taking a free kick one foot from where he wanted it, like a nasty sadistic little shit. He laughs when wanayama (or whoever) pulls Giroud down so hard in the box that it rips his shirt in half. Prowse had 10 – 15 fouls alone -no problem says Mason…

    Lee Mason, you are a joker and they’re coming for you and the PGMOL. You won’t hear me say this often but Lee Mason is deserves all he gets. Enough is enough!

  84. Gutted.

    Sounds like the boys did everything but score. Why do keepers do this at our place?

    I’ll have to reserve judgement on the ref as I didn’t see it but going by the fact Coquelin gets booked for his first foul after all we heard was going on gives me an idea.

    According to the SKY man at the game City where outplayed by Sunderland for the entire 2nd half but somehow hung on.

    Vardy 2 great goals for Leicester earned them a deserved win by the sound of it.

    Spurs won there game in the first half and resisted a slight Norwich revival in the 2nd.

    United actually played some football and won in a canter.

    So all in all not a great night but still a long long way to go.

    What really frustrates me though is when we have games like this we need a break. A pen would help like everyone else seems to get when they need it.

    Or the opposition to throw one in for us but when does that happen?

    As I say, gutted.

    But I’m not angry. Not moaning.

    Just lamenting our luck and really really gutted for the lads.

  85. The cheating ref aside we don’t do ourselves justice. We are way too blunt in front of goal. FFS move Ramsey forward!

  86. Mason MOTM. PGMO get a draw. Romeu clatters into players like a rolling pin and gets a nod from the ref.

    One thing can be said about this game – you get a clear full view of the mountain to be climbed.

  89. We knew Mason is a cheat from his previous. Nothing new there.

    We don’t comment because we are surprised (the opposite) but because the scale of the cheating in front of so many paying punters (including ourselves) is remarkable. And therefore we remark upon it.

    Anyone who believes or believed that you can win a League against the consistent and undeniable and easily observed bias of these officials game after game needs to go and…watch Escape to Victory lol. It’s a good movie, Santi Cazorla and Lee SS ‘Hold on I’ve still got me hair’ Probert in the lead role. I recommend it.

  90. this is how Arsenal lose the league in the previous seasons… This is how we fall in the last meters.
    Just to remind the Arsenal fans again, this is Deja vu… But lets not blame the cheating refs (Southampton home-away ; Stoke; etc….) No lets blame our players for whatever happens every match…

    He fuckin moved the damn ball two inchs to waste time, then blue at 6min when we had our last chance, the ball in the air… And Arsenal fans still not raged for God sake… what the hell is this??????????

    Its the players job to score goals, and yours to defend your team… They failed to score, and what will you do? I guess I know the answer.

  91. No menace get your head out of Wengers behind and fuckin admit that the team was shit.

    Ref was poor yes but did the ref miss the one on ones? All the assists that ozil gave I suppose the ref missed them too.

    This manager has gone stale and until this nuisance is booed out of the club expect this bulls hit every year.

  92. 5th gen, agree on Danny…. and Ramsey playing further forward.
    And we are seriously missing Caz in a game like that.
    But I am stunned at the refereeing, not in some northern outpost, but in our ground.

  93. 3 points from 12 is not exactly title winning form is it ? Forster had a blinder but Arsenal still had enough chances to win it and failed – I desperately wanted this season to be different but it seems to be going down the usual path …………

  94. What a crock of shit
    Let’s see the ones who keep on making excuses after excuses
    Talk the shit out of this one
    19 points dropped within 3 months
    Worst record in top 6
    But I guess we’re 4th a arsene
    Like

  95. Southampton 19 fouls 1 yellow

    Arsenal 11 fouls 2 yellows

    And that doesn’t include the fouls not called.

    Even Thompson sounded like he felt sorry for us, putting the hyper critical stelling back in his box.

    “Arsenal played really well, how they didn’t win it I don’t know”

    Admittedly he never mentioned the ref (aside from the booking to le Coq that he questioned at the time) or the penalty shout, but he was pushed for time.

    Would he of mentioned the Ref/Pen with time? I doubt it.

    All this and we’ve already got the whingers out to play.

  96. I’m too angry to write. You know the pigMOB bast*rd is blind, bias and incompetent when ward-prowse, wanyama and Co didn’t get a card but Coquelin was booked on his first challenge.

    When will the cheating stop. Can fans at the ground start something?

  97. Rathod – Wenger puts out a good team coached to play football. You want northern style foul football. The fact that Saints didn’t get booked allowed them a whole game of fouling, including 2 clear penalty incidents. You need to find another club perhaps Leicester – they are PGMO flavour of the season. I would rather have a team that is robbed playing good football than any doctored trophy win.

    Wenger is still the greatest manager ever.

  98. Ffs if they want to gift the title to the oil riches why don’t they just do so? To hell with their corrupt league

  99. Jambug – 19 called fouls. How many were not called? He let clear bookings go, yet moved a ball 2 inches while the defender was a foot in front of his magic line. Check it out.

  100. ohh come on. why do we blame Mason? we see it every damn week and we still let it go.. no reacton.. we should blame ourselves…

    Again Deja vu…How many points have they stole from us this season??? But its ok, its surely Wenger, the players, the medical teams. The ref yes a factor, but lets not talk about it…

  101. Lee Masn is incompetent and shouldn’t be allowed near a pitch again. When Sanchez was running with Van Dijk towards the corner he was blatantly pushed in the back, Mason was about to whistle but as the assistant didn’t wave his flag he decided it wasn’t a foul. It was a blatant push in the back. Later when Ozil was about to take a free kick, he moved the blob of spray about a foot forward together with the ball but the eagle eyed assistant who didn’t see the foul right in front of him must have communicated with Mason so he went over to Ozil, moved the ball back and told him off like a naughty school boy. I haven’t been on this site much until recently, having had enough of the online moaner aka Gooner, and read the article about the upcoming official so was watching his performance even closer than usual. He was appalling. As for the game, we were poor in the first half, misplaced passes and a lack of confidence with a wide open midfield. Not sure Flamini and Ramsey are the right partnership and tonight both tried hard but were way below their best. The keeper had a blinder and as we actually starterd to play in the second half the bounce of the ball just didn’t favour us at all. Frustrating result as others around us all won but win on Sunday and Leicester at home and it’s all to play for again. There will be many more twists and turns. Up the Arsenal.

  102. Just found this : In praise of the Norfolk coast: big skies, sandy beaches and subtle beauty – next time you ask for a copy of The Guardian, Tony. Hope it is not too late for you 🙂

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