Southampton have beaten Arsenal by a 1-0 score-line this afternoon, leaving pure disappointment on the faces of our fans.
The Gunners went into today’s match knowing that we needed to take advantage of Tottenham’s failure to beat Brighton earlier on today, but once again we leave disappointed.
Despite being winless in their last six matches, they put in a solid display of focus and used their more experienced players to get the better of a tactical game, although it wasn’t always destined to go that way.
Fraser Forster put in a number of saves in the first-half which he had no right to get to, with Bukayo Saka’s close-range effort one that is stuck in my mind, although the youngster should have done much better to find either of the low corners of the goal instead of hitting it towards the centre of the goal.
We were punished right before half-time at a point in the game where we had been looking dangerous, and they came out after the break with a purpose. For the majority of the second-half, while our players were trying to scrap, they couldn’t get close enough to the goal, and Forster isn’t the type of goalkeeper to be beaten from range.
The Saints stopper is by far the Man of the Match for me, although it was a strong team performance to limit us to very little opportunity to beat the keeper also.
This team simply doesn’t have enough experience in it to deal with the challenge that was set for them, with our players showing plenty of frustration as they continued to lack the guile to break down the resilient Southampton defence.
We saw last week that this team was lacking in ideas, and losing Alexandre Lacazette may or may not have affecting our chances, but what I do know is that we need to be adding real leaders into the squad for next season. I’m struggling to believe this side has what it takes to fight for a strong finish, and am already writing off our side for the top four, despite us being no worse off than we were last week.
Do you believe we could have won if we scored the opening goal of the game? Other than leadership, what do you think we lacked most this afternoon?
Patrick
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