Southampton (2) 3 Arsenal (1) 2

Premier League

St. Mary’s Stadium, Britannia Road, Southampton SO14 5FP

Sunday, 16th December 2018. Kick-off time: 1.30pm

(4-2-3-1) Leno; Bellerín, Lichtsteiner, Koscielny, Monreal; Torreira, Xhaka; Guendouzi, Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang; Iwobi

Substitutes: Čech, Elneny, Ramsey, Lacazette, Özil, Maitland-Niles, Nketiah

Scorers: Mkhitaryan (2)

Yellow Cards: Koscielny

Referee: Chris Kavanagh

Attendance: 29,497

Southampton are one of those clubs that we always seem to meet in the league at around Christmas time. As I recall, one of my first matches at The Old Place was on Boxing Day 1966, when John Radford and George Armstrong had equal goalscoring rights in a spectacular 4-1 victory over Southampton. Of course, The Saints provided us with one of our most famous bandits; before all our great goalscorers in the post-war modern era, there was always The Emperor. After signing from Southampton for £6,500 (£442,000 today) in March 1934, Ted Drake scored 138 goals in 184 appearances for us, and is still the club’s fifth highest goalscorer of all time; incredibly his record of 41 goals in 42 matches back in the 1934-35 championship hat-trick season still holds. All that in a campaign that saw him score three hat-tricks and four, four-goal collections along the way as well! Unbelievably, he also holds the record for the most goals scored in a top flight game in English football, with seven goals (in eight shots) against Aston Villa in December 1935. After a period of injury, he called it a day in 1945 after winning everything in the game with us in the late thirties (including five caps for England); he then went into management where he was the first man to win a league championship medal as both a player and a manager, when he led Chelsea to their first title in 1955; Drake finished his managerial days being assistant manager at Barcelona in 1970. A true Arsenal legend, they really don’t make English footballers like Ted Drake anymore.

That was it, then. Our 22-match unbeaten run has finally come to an end today in an inglorious match at St. Mary’s that saw us crash out 2-3 to a Southampton team that may have been well-organised, but at best not the most thrilling of teams. The match itself seemed to be a yin-and-yan game with whatever appeared to happen in the Southampton end, the same came to pass in our area, too. Our defence today was disastrous with Southampton finding their way through constantly and consistently almost at will. They took the lead as early as the 20th minute with a goal that was a howling error in our defence. To be fair, we organised ourselves and grabbed an equaliser less than ten minutes later with a superb header by Henrikh Mkhitaryan, that was an extremely well-taken header. that came almost out of nowhere. For the rest of the half, we more than held our own, despite another goal scored by the home side a minute or so before the break.

On the back foot, we started the second half desperate to make a mark on the game. Another Henrikh Mkhitaryan goal levelled the score after 53 minutes but to be fair, even though we came back into the match at this point, we started to look like the side that was chasing the game. We lost the grip of the game, and it was no surprise to anyone in the stadium (and those who were watching on TV) that our defence was found wanting on several occasions; we leaked the final goal of the game with five minutes to go on the clock, but by then unfortunately, the match was running away from us, and although the final whistle was blown five minutes later, it became a game that we had difficulty containing, let alone controlling.

The problem with this match wasn’t so much as the sterling efforts by the midfield players, but how the defenders were caught out by the Saints’ strikers time and time again. This is a lesson that needs to be learned by our defenders very quickly; if not, then Mr. Emery needs to try to get some commanding defenders signed up in the January transfer window. Overall, a disappointing match from our perspective, but it is certainly one that we can learn from, and quickly, too. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.

There are two mantra’s that I use with Arsenal in the post-Wenger era:

1. It is not what you spend but who you buy
2. Arsenal are a long term project; changes will not happen overnight

Due to this, I do not expect Arsenal to buy a central defender in January.

Following the defeat to Southampton with a makeshift defence, a few fans responded with the fairly logical “we need to go out and buy a centre back in January”. Whilst I understand where they are coming from, we do not need to buy a centre back in January.

What we need to do is buy the right centre back, regardless of whether they join in January or the summer. What we should not do is panic buy someone who we do not quite want, tying up transfer fees and salaries.

Panic buying in January is the short term solution. We could go out, spend £40million on a centre back who is not high or our list, and end up missing out on preferred targets who could come available in the summer.

We saw this with the acquisitions of Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez. Both were panic buys. Players who we did not really want. Players who we overpaid for and ended up stuck with.

Over the next two transfer windows, we need to recruit a winger, a left back and a central defender.

Unlike Manchester City, we do not have unlimited funds to go out and spend £42million on Eliaquim Mangala, not fancy him and spend £28million on Nicolas Otemandi a year later. Not like him either so spend £47.5million on John Stones and 18 months later still spend £57million on Aymeric Laporte. all the while Vincent Kompany still being the teams best centre back.

We can not afford to get it wrong. We do not have a bottomless pit of transfer funds.

Therefore we need to buy the right centre back, regardless of his price. We can not afford to panic buy someone to cover for 6 months, before dipping into the transfer market again in the summer to buy another centre back.

We would be better waiting for the summer, if the right man is available in the summer. If he is available in January, go for him in January. Sven Mislintant and Raul Sanllehi know what they are doing. They do not need me to tell them that the next 6 years is more important than the next 6 months.

Arsenal’s defensive crisis was only for one game.

Against Tottenham in the League Cup, and moving forward into 2019, we have Mustafi, Laurent Koscielny and Sokratis.

If the right man is available who improves on those 3, then we move for him. If they are not available, I am comfortable that all 3 are of the quality and experience to see us into the top 4 this season; and then next summer we go for the defender we need.

We need to focus on the learn term. See how Jurgen Klopp has built a strong Liverpool squad over half a dozen transfer windows. Arsenal will follow their blue print (and hopefully actually win some trophies whilst rebuilding).

Wait for a Virgil van Dijk to come available, do not waste your money on Marcos Rojo, then Eric Bailly and finally Victor Lindelof, and still moan you need to buy a new centre back.

If the solution to our defence is not available in January, we should not panic buy.

In January, No centre back is better than a poor centre back.

Keenos