Arsenal drew 1-1 at St. Mary’s to Southampton and I do feel ill. You can say that it is a good thing that I feel like this as we lost to this team last year at St. Mary’s and all things considered, this is a game we probably would have lost last season. Anyways this is a game where we absolutely dominated in the first half with Southampton not even coming close to touching us then in the second half, inexplicably falling apart and giving up the 3 points. We were more than fortunate to get the 3 points against Leeds last week which probably evens things out for us to pick up a draw today, however, the performance in and of itself makes the draw so frustrating as it was 100% 2 points lost instead of 1 point gained. We have Forest next week at home, which basically means 3 points or Kent questions everything.
THOUGHTS ON THE GAME:
- PLEASE PLAY TIERNEY AT LB – I love love love Tomiyasu more than anybody but can we please stop experimenting with a RB at left-back and instead play our left-footed international LB. Just like last week, Tomiyasu is just so easy to press and defend at LB as he will always look to go inside or backward with no threat down the left flank, not his fault, it is just how it is. Arteta went with the same starting XI that played against Leeds and Liverpool but he needs to see the light with Tierney. No excuse to see it next week against Forest.
- NOBODY NEEDS A GOAL MORE THAN JESUS – the performances are there, he is doing everything we need, except scoring goals. The opportunities are there, they are just not cleanly coming off him. He seems to be scuffing and hurriedly taking his chances. He also doesn’t get nearly the service he should be getting from Ø but that is a completely separate discussion I will have later.
- THE REFEREE TODAY WAS ABYSMAL – Essentially, our players got outwardly mauled today in the 18 yard box and nothing was done at all.
Like what are we doing here, if you did this to a human outside of a soccer game, you would be arrested but there was not even a foul that was called for this mauling (obvious exaggeration but you get my point.
Robert Jones, the referee, is definitely a newly added addition to the terrible referees this league employs but has moved himself towards the top of refs I absolutely detest, to be fair, that is like every referee currently but you also get my point.
4. PLEASE MAKE XHAKA CAPTAIN OR Ø BETTER START SHOWING UP – I am tired of us not coming out offensively dominant and see that Ø has barely touched the ball, Bro, you are our “10” and our captain, you are given free rein to go to anywhere on the pitch, I don’t care if you have to take the ball off Saliba or Gabriel through force, we go as you go offensively. We can’t have you disappearing at the away games when the most is asked from our captain. Too many times today we were lost going forward and Ø is nowhere to be found. It is a damning indictment on your performance, when you are our captain and our “CAM” and you get subbed off when we are looking for a goal, he needs to tighten up cause Xhaka is coming for the captainship.
5. JUST MAKE XHAKA CAPTAIN – It is just so clear now that he is the real leader of this team. With the tricky past, it is understandable why you can’t make him captain, but he is clearly the vocal leader. And it is fine that Ø isn’t a vocal leader but that means your actions need to be spot on and it is too inconsistent for me at this point. Xhaka has put himself about superbly so far, and you can see his influence all across this team, just make him captain and have faith he won’t turn himself into a fool.
6. BEN WHITE OVERLAPS ARE A THING OF BEAUTY:
With his CB prototype, not many defenders are expecting himself to commit himself for overlaps so when he does it, its a newly added threat to our offense that he needs to keep up.
7. GABRIEL JESUS NEEDS TO DIVE MORE – I love the honesty but we need this man to go down more often when he gets mauled.
Featured image credits: Associated Press
Twitter credits: DailyAFC