In sheer contrast to the gallant, sensational and somewhat inspiring win against Manchester City last week, this was downright poor. Ridiculously slapstick and unnervingly Arsenal, it was yet another example on why we cannot let our hopes up when it comes to this Premier League challenge. We may win it, we may not – but let’s not assume that our competitors’ poor form hands the league to us. We may be worse.
We weren’t particularly bad before Southampton scored their first, in all honesty. We were passing the ball around quite well, and fashioning some half-chances that Olivier Giroud and Nacho Monreal failed to get on target. It wasn’t the best of starts, granted, but we were tidy with possession and looked like finding the key to the lock anytime. Had we scored then, many would have said it was coming.
As we know, however, it was the Saints who took the lead. A cross in the box was cleared away as well as Per Mertesacker could, but Martina saw the ball toward him and in one flash, rocketed it past the defence and beyond the goalkeeper. There wasn’t much we could do to prevent that, even with a guy like Petr Cech in goal. Apparently one of the players was offside (I didn’t see it, but it must be true) so there may be some element of unfairness there. Suffice to say, that goal came out of the blue, leaving us to look for the light.
We know now we failed. It was shocking how readily the heads started to fall once we conceded the opener. Giroud, Joel Campbell and Theo Walcott are good players who do their jobs, but they aren’t leaders. They don’t drag the team out of hidey-holes and need figures of examples to spur them on. They continued to put in anonymous shifts while the likes of Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey tried to spark something, but couldn’t.
It’s illuminating how difficult we find it to bounce back from setbacks. I know it’s very important in every game for a team to take the lead if they want to win, and the impacts of trailing stings. But for some reason, I can’t help but feel it stings a lot more for us. Look at Leicester City – every time they fall behind, they never give up. They hustle and harry and huff and puff until they blow the house down.
Us? When we’re on top and we take the lead, things are grand. We dictate the play and produce some mesmerizing football at times. However, in the Premier League and the Champions League combined, after conceding the first goal we’ve only managed to pull four points from a possible twenty four. Twenty four. One impressive win against Leicester, and one draw against Tottenham. What’s the plan when things go south?
You could equate this to Arsenal in a broader sense, too. We go on winning streaks because we’re a side capable of going strength-to-strength. However, a run of poor results goes on to stretch itself for ages, and suddenly everything goes wrong. We forget how to win, we forget how to recover. As we saw yesterday, we forget how to gather our bearings and recoup.
Wenger’s tactics weren’t a big help, either. Playing a high line against Shane Long and Sadio Mane was always risky, especially after falling 1-0 down. Laurent Koscielny always has the tendency to foray higher in the pitch and intercept the ball before his opponent can do something with it. It’s a high-risk high-reward strategy, but the risk is relatively lessened if he knows Per Mertesacker is behind to mop up his errors.
That high line killed any chances of defensive security. The Flambo pair in midfield is hardly the most symbiotic, but adding a rocky defensive platform behind it aggravated things. The second and fourth goal were direct results of failed offside traps and acres of spaces afforded to people, who will use that to their benefit. Mertesacker had a mare. Any slow defender would have.
Claims for the referee’s hand in the loss seem ludicrous, considering how nervy we looked against a simple hit-em-on-the-break philosophy. All Southampton did was crowd out Ozil and counter-attack. All we did was what we always do – pass and move Wengerball stuff, that won’t work when your attacking fulcrum is congested for space.
It’s another suspicious coincidence how a comprehensive loss as such occurred when we had the chance to reap our rewards. Leicester’s loss to Liverpool meant that the opportunity for going one point clear at the top was very much real. We’ve always had a hard time at St. Mary’s Stadium (never won there since they were promoted), but today was ridiculous. Five minutes after Southampton scored the first goal it was apparent we had given up the ghost. Where was the winning spirit?
Playing football with that perspective won’t win you games. It won’t get you points and it won’t win you titles. There’s a fundamental lack of motivation when things go wrong, and an absence of a Plan B to funnel that motivation the right way. Even buying Lionel Messi and Sergio Ramos in the January transfer window won’t change that.
The good news is that most of the Premier League isn’t that good right now. Manchester United are falling down an abyss to which I see no end, City have a motivational problem too, the gas in Leicester’s tank has run out for a while, and Chelsea are too far behind to be considered relevant. If we keep our psychological issues aside and grind victories, we can force ourselves into a good run of form. The unpredictability of the league has meant even a 4-0 loss to Southampton can be forgiven.
However, it remains to be seen if we can set our minds right. A home game to Bournemouth could be just the tonic, provided we take the lead. Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal’s will always be mentally fickle, but so is the entire league’s. Now is not the time for introspecting how we should psychologically approach games. It’s the time for scrapping wins and pulling ourselves closer to the summit.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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