Wenger: I don’t know when Wilshere will be back

A gimme surely as we are up against a Southampton side with just one point from the previous 15 and on the end of a public dressing down from their manager.

Arsenal have a short turnaround for Bournemouth’s visit to the Emirates given that they kicked off at the later time of 7.45pm, compared to the Cherries’ 3pm Boxing Day kick-off, and Wenger’s task is made even harder in the knowledge that none of his players now sidelined by injury are in contention to return.

But this was a potentially damaging result and display and Arsene Wenger’s men must now aim for six points and nothing less from home matches against Bournemouth and Newcastle United. We lost too many challenges and that explains why we lost the game.

The result kept Arsenal second in the table, two points below Leicester City and a point above Manchester City, ahead of Monday’s home game with Bournemouth.

“We didn’t look sharp in my opinion and this is a tough place to come to”.

The game at St Mary’s could have offered Arsenal a chance to go top of the Premier League, but after a poor performance they returned to north London reeling from a shock 4-0 defeat.

“We are in a job where we have to respond, we want to respond from disappointment”, Wenger said. After the Foxes were downed 1-0 by Liverpool on Boxing Day, Arsenal needed to beat a desperately-out-of-form Southampton to go top.

In fact, Wenger suggested in the build up to our defeat against Southampton that there was a danger of being too confident after a big win. Nobody, not even the best players in the world, can have that.

“We were not at our usual level and that’s more disappointing than not overtaking Leicester at the top”.

“That’s always the question you get”, he said.

“We had a lot of patience and it was good”. It did the manager no favors, but at the very least he did not turn on his own players who were the most culpable on Saturday evening.

Roberto Martinez’s side looked to have squandered their dominant display with a series of missed chances until Cleverley popped up with his perfectly timed intervention to stun St James’ Park.

“So buy, buy, buy, buy is always the solution that people see”. And now we have Cazorla and Coquelin out with long term injuries, Alexis having suffered a setback and, quite probably, Ozil in the red zone, will soon suffer an enforced absence (I hope not but I wouldnt be surprised).