Southampton vs Arsenal PL 15/16

Team news:
Southampton: Stekelenburg (foot - doubt), Rodriguez (ankle), Gardos (knee), Forster (knee)

Arsenal: Wilshere (ankle), Welbeck (knee), Rosicky (knee), Coquelin (knee), Arteta (ankle), Cazorla (knee), Alexis (hamstring)


Arsenal were beaten 2-0 at St Mary’s at the start of 2015, but Ronald Koeman’s side are not in as good form now - struggling in the bottom half of the table, and without a victory in their last five games.

Still, this is a well-organised side with technically-gifted attackers, and Southampton shouldn’t be underestimated merely because of their league position.

Koeman continues to use a reasonably high defensive line, and while he recently experimented with a three-man defence in a defeat at Crystal Palace, don’t expect anything other than a traditional four-man defence on Boxing Day.

Jose Fonte and Virgil van Dijk have formed a reliable centre-back partnership and Ryan Bertrand continues to excel at left-back, although Cedric Soares is better going forward than defensively, and can sometimes find himself out of position.

Victor Wanyama is a tough-tackling central midfielder but is more exposed without Morgan Schneiderlin alongside him - Jordy Clasie is a talented footballer but more attacking, and yet to completely settle in Premier League football.

Steven Davis, who was superb in a 2-1 Capital One Cup victory at the Emirates last season, will play at the head of the midfield trio and make regular runs into attack.

Going forward, Southampton have three fine attackers. Graziano Pelle leads the line but usually comes short to receive passes into feet. In terms of goalscoring he’s a pure penalty-box poacher, as his shots from this fixture last season suggest:


His service is often provided by Dusan Tadic, who twists and turns before delivering excellent, whipped left-footed crosses - he’s likely to start from the left flank here.

Arguably the biggest threat, though, is the extraordinarily quick Sadio Mane, who curled in the opener in this fixture last season. Playing from the right in recent weeks, he’s also capable of being a second striker, sprinting in behind the opposition when Pelle comes short towards play.

With Southampton determined to get the ball into attack as quickly as possible, Arsenal must be wary of the Saints’ counter-attacking.

Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/20151224/58052/southampton-v-arsenal#AAcevwPUAikabeHF.99




Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/20151224/southampton-v-arsenal



Source: http://arseblog.com/2015/12/arsecast-extra-episode-98-22-12-2015/

We really have to win this one to keep the momentum going and make sure the city win is actually relevant. No point losing tonight after winning on monday.

Keep the same team as we did have like a 5 day rest. Maybe Oxlade for Joel but i am not too sure

we can rotate vs bournemouth in 2 days.

Southampton are in poor form atm so we shouldnt give them any sort of respect and give them hope of coming back. Beat them somehow and gtfo

I don't care how we played as long as we get the 3 points home, with the amount injuries we have and the amount of games we are going to play with our tiny squad. Results > performance for this one and the rest of the Christmas period.

We can go top tonight. Come on lads ffs.

Same team then.

This is it

Toughest game of the Christmas period, the rest are manageable. Need to build on the good win and performance against City

What a finish

Need to start playing, too timid so far

How did Theo miss that

You want Giroud there

ZZZzzzzzzz.....

Someone wake me up when we create a decent chance.

Terrible first half.

Must step it up in the second half.

Too many sloppy passes, must do better.

Average first half

Very slow and predictable when we have the ball, Santi is badly missed. We moved the ball better with him in team and there is more fluidity. Now Mertesacker and Koscielny have to be playmakers because Flamini and Ramsey don't want to do it.

We have to do better going forward because if we play like we did in the first half. I can't see us creating anything, their keeper and back four haven't been tested to be honest

Must be the Christmas hangover.

Oh well

Game over to be honest

We were never in it. One of those grounds we can never do well at I guess

What was the point of beating City then

Oh my days

Making Shane long look like Aguero

Obi wan Iwobi, you my only hope

Humiliation complete, seriously doubting our title credentials to be honest

Well, the score favors us.

Tittle contenders.

I have seen this movie before.

edit

I'm no longer doubting. I'm convinced. We ain't winning a thing with this bunch of bottlers.

Can't say we didn't call it. A great win against City on Monday, ruined within six days against a team in poor form. Leicester lose, we can go top, so we lose. It's like clockwork.

It was awful all the way through. Not one period of decent play from us at all. Everything, from how we couldn't build-up from the back because of a simple press (how many times have I typed this), how Mertesacker took too many touches on the ball before passing, to our mid two doing nothing, to no movement up front, and rookie errors on all the goals and even some poor refereeing. Everything was crap.

Maybe the injuries have just caught up with us, I don't know, but a team that's supposed to go on and win the league doesn't perform like that. What happened to digging in and fighting for a result? What happened to just doing the basic things, getting away with a scrappy point? Soon as the first goal went in I thought we weren't going to come back. After the second we were done.

And you knew it'd get worse after that because we were leaving just the centre backs behind and pushing everyone forward even when nothing was working. We made Long look like Luis Suarez. Praise Southampton for their good tactics but we made it so, so easy for them.

This sounds defeatist but even this season with no outright good team I can't see how we're going to win the league. We've got no depth in the squad at the moment because of injuries. The current lot are going to gain fatigue and injuries the more they have to play. Somehow we need to get to late Feb/March with, what, 17 fit first team players? Maybe less than that? And a couple of reserves. Then we have to hope that Coquelin and Cazorla recover as scheduled, and that notoriously injury prone Wilshere comes backs, that Welbeck comes back... it feels like injuries will ruin yet another season.

Now thanks to this bullshit scheduling (it's okay, it's traditional) we have to play Monday evening. Maybe the chance to put things right quickly will help but I can't imagine it being good for the team's fitness.

Title isnt won or lost by this game anyway
grind out results in next 2 games and restore the confidence
shit happens