Southampton 4-0 Arsenal; The gunners blow chance to go top

It’s been a hugely disappointing month for Southampton as after looking like potential European challengers earlier on in the campaign they were beaten 1-0 by Stoke on November 21st and have since gone on to lose four and draw one of their next five matches.

The Gunners slumped to a miserable 4-0 defeat at St Mary’s to the rampant Saints, who were on a run of five games without a win prior to the game.

Following Arsenal’s hammering at Southampton, Arsene Wenger said: “I believe what I say to my players is between my players and myself”.

“It is the quality of our performance that counts and we were not good enough to win the game (against Southampton)”.

Southampton scored three more on the day-one of them a lovely team goal that didn’t come without its own bit of controversy.

“The second aspect is that on the first three goals we were really unlucky with the decision of the referee”. But if you explain all the wrong decisions are normal it’s even more hard to win games.

So there you have it, Wenger shifting some of the blame from his side’s disastrous result today to to referee Jon Moss and his officials. Have your say in the comments section below. And Saints changed tack following last week’s loss to Tottenham, starting at a slower, more methodical tempo as they looked to firm up at the back.

Offside calls against Steven Davis in the build-up to the opener were ignored, as was Laurent Koscielny’s appeal for a foul in the build-up to Shane Long’s close-range strike 10 minutes after halftime.

“The second half was far better than the first, there were some good goals and maybe chances to score more”, added Koeman.

I do think we’ll see Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain given a start in place of Joel Campbell but otherwise it’ll be the same front-line that faced Southampton.

The Saints held on for a famous 4-0 victory over the London giants as Arsene Wenger’s men missed a glorious chance to become league leaders after trailing Leicester for weeks.

The Gunners – who began 2015 with a shambolic performance at St Mary’s – produced a repeat on Boxing Day against a Southampton side who went into the game in atrocious form.

Republic of Ireland global Shane Long grabbed two goals and could have had a third when he hit the post.

“It is just such a bad result for them and it once again illustrates that Arsenal need to sign players in the January transfer window, but it will not happen because Wenger is remarkably stubborn and that is why they have not won the title in over a decade”. It was a tough night for Arsenal, we caused them a lot of problems.

It was a first Barclays Premier League start that Martina will certainly not be forgetting in a hurry.