Southampton 4-0 Arsenal: 5 Talking Points
Arsenal slipped to an embarrassing 4-0 defeat to Southampton at St. Mary’s on Boxing Day as they missed a chance to go top of the league table. A first half wonder-strike from right-back Cuco Martina and three second-half goals were enough to give Southampton a much-deserved victory. A brace for Shane Long, and a header from Jose Fonte, meant the Saints regained their form and sprung a surprise.Arsene Wenger had named the same starting XI for the fourth straight game in all competitions, but the Gunners could not match their previous performances and suffered a could-be-costly defeat.Here are the major talking points from the game.
#1 Slow start from Arsenal
Arsenal started the game slow against a low-on-confidence Southampton side. The St. Mary’s crowd did enough to remind the Gunners whose place it was. But for Arsene Wenger’s side, Cuco Martina’s wonder-strike from 30 metres out could not have come at a worse time. The Gunners struggled to start their engine, having possession inside their half on multiple occasions.
There were factors involved which led to Arsenal’s slow start to the game, as both Koscielny and Mertesacker were lucky to have escaped without giving more goals away to the home side. The first major chance of the first half fell to Southampton, where Koscielny was involved with Southampton’s Ward-Prowse. Mertesacker was seen giving several back passes to his goalkeeper Petr Cech, which frustrated their fans.
A team consisting of Mesut Ozil, Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud up front, will have hoped to play aggressively. But they lacked a certain zip in the team, and they paid for it dearly when they went behind to Southampton. A 4-0 loss should put them in a place where they will ascertain what went wrong, and starting the game strongly is one of the factors that wins you games.