Arsenal Vs Southampton: Recap, highlights and analysis

Arsenal travelled to the South coast in desperate need of a win. Here is a full recap, all the highlights and analysis from the 2-0 win over Southampton.

The top four dream is still alive… just. It was a nervy, drab affair, one which offered little exciting football as the Madrid derby excited most of the footballing world. Arsenal squeezed past a regimented and resilient Southampton side thanks to the only piece of attacking quality in the whole game. And it was that man once more who has rescued his side.

The first half started in predictable fashion: Arsenal dominated much of the possession; Southampton sat off of them and looked to use their pace on the break, exploiting the overly advanced positions of the two wing-backs. Both teams passed the ball around neatly, looking exploit angled, incisive runs to get in behind the opposition.

Openings were engineered by both teams but the final ball was poor on most occasions. The best chance of the early stanza came to Aaron Ramsey, who steered a shot past the near post after Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain had cleverly found him with a neat square pass after ghosting inside Cedric.

The rest of the half, bar a few bright moments here and there was rather quiet. Arsenal continued to probe, with cute touches around the corner from Mesut Ozil and Danny Welbeck the most likely way of unpicking a rigid and resolute Saints’ defence. However, other than a few openings here and there, all of the best chances came at the other end.

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Manolo Gabbiadini fired a dangerous square pass across the six-yard box before missing the best chance of the half. As Arsenal go long and lose possession, Shkodran Mustafi, who was playing at the heart of the back three with the absence of Laurent Koscielny, maddeningly and unfathomably stepped up, with no pressure on the ball, and allowed Dusan Tadic to slip in behind his attentions. Tadic couldn’t quite bring the lofted ball down, but Mustafi’s sliding, recovering challenge deflected the ball straight into the path of Gabbiadini, who was immediately smothered by Petr Cech, and resultantly squandering the fine opportunity.

Cech would proceed to make a terrific save from a swerving, dipping, diving Nathan Redmond strike from distance later in the half, but the dominating narrative of the match was the struggles of the Gunners at the other end of the pitch. For all their pretty passing, neat interplay and dominating, controlling possession, they were yet to produce a shot on target.

The second hald started in the same dull, miserly manner that the first half wandered through, and while openings did continue to present themselves to both sides, the lack of quality in the final pass was painfully evident.

It wasn’t until the hour mark when that crucial piece of quality came to the fore. Mesut Ozil played in Alexis Sanchez with an accurate, first time pass. Sanchez spun away from two Southampton defenders, faked the shot with his right foot, turning back on himself, ridding himself of the attentions of both defenders, opening the whole goal up to him to simply slot the shot past the onrushing Fraser Forster with his left foot.

The goal did seem to settle the game down for the Gunners. Sanchez looked much sharper on the break, Aaron Ramsey started getting on the ball more and Southampton were limited to little more than hopeful crosses and pot shots, most notably from Sofiane Boufal, after a twisting, turning run brought him a little space on the edge of the area.

Olivier Giroud, who came on for Danny Welbeck late in the game, did save Arsenal a nervous ending, heading into an open goal after Aaron Ramsey’s directed Alexis Sanchez’s beautifully curled cross back across the penalty area and straight into the path of the Frenchman. It was a well-worked goal and one that assured the Gunners of the win.

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And while it was far from the fluid, intricate, pretty football that Arsenal showcase when they are their best, it is a win, a win that drags them to within touching distance with Manchester City and Liverpool, with a game in hand over the latter. Arsenal still need to win all three of their remaining Premier League games to offer themselves even a glimmer of a chance of finishing in the top four, but they have a shot, and given the dreadful second half of the season thus far, that is better than many had expected.

Highlights

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