Matchday Thread - Southampton vs Arsenal - 1 Jan 2015

Unleash the almighty power of our clinical strikeforce, I'd say:

Szczesny
Debuchy, Chambers, Koscielny, Gibbs
Flamini, Coquelin (just for some stability)
Walcott, Sanchez, Podolski
Welbeck

Good luck defending that without Clyne or Schneiderlin, Southampton.

Too big of a fixture for Theo's first start. Podolski, no thanks. Santi on form is undroppable. And Ox has to start as well.

Too big of a fixture for Theo's first start. Podolski, no thanks. Santi on form is undroppable. And Ox has to start as well.

Too much trickery for me. Cazorla and Ox both try to dribble their way through opposition, whereas Podolski and Theo are more direct and run into channels. We have a golden opportunity to exploit Southampton's lack of good defensive players, but if we're going to try fancy dribbles for 90 minutes we're screwed.

Theo bombarding down the right and Podolski bombarding down the left = overwhelming Southampton on the flanks and pushing their entire defensive line back.

I doubt if we will see Poldi or Joel starting up even if they stay, will get game time only in FA cup matches unless there is injury crisis upfront. My lineup would be . Most important change would be Per getting some bench time else Mane and Pelle would leave a mess behind.

Szczesny Debuchy, Chambers, Koscielny, Gibbs Flamini, Coquelin (just for some stability) Walcott, Santi , Sanchez Welbeck

Wenger pre-match press conference:

We will fight to be as close as possible [to the top]. We are not in a mode of calculating, we are in a mode of "let’s go to the next game and win it". You give your best and if there is a weakness in front of you, you want to take advantage of it. I don’t know if there will be any weakness in front of us, but what I know is that we can give our best until the end of the season to have a chance to do it.

I believe that there is a deficit between the potential we have shown and the number of points we have. That’s what we want to get right. I feel we were very, very unlucky with the injuries we got. With the number of injuries we’ve had, we have survived quite well. But I believe that hopefully in the second part of the season, we’ll have more stability, especially defensively, to be more consistent.

On Koscielny:

His individual quality is huge, he is a top-class defender. On top of that he has a lot of experience together with Per Mertesacker and you could feel that in the game against West Ham. They understand each other well, they understand each other’s movements and they cover each other very well.

You judge a defence more as a back four. We want to show have big targets in front of us now and that our back four can deal with the problems we have. In some games we were a bit exposed because we had a lack of experience.

More from Wenger, talking about what area to strengthen:

If you look at the number of games some players played and the injuries we have with Wilshere, Ramsey and Arteta, we are a bit short at the moment in midfield.

Calum Chambers as DM today.

Playing good and loosing on Half-time, Classic! Chambers was bit lost on DM, opposite of Coq who is taking the chance that he is giving.

Koeman has access to inferior individual skill, his best defensive players were out injured, he's only been at the club for a few months, he has nowhere near the experience of Wenger...he doesn't have the luxury of knowing his club inside out, he doesn't have the luxury of our resources...he lost ten of the clubs' best players this summer...

...and he still manages to put together a better team and defensive unit than Wenger.

I can't wait to hear how the Wenger jihadists will explain this one.

Wait you cant be serious about this IX. This is awful .The game was sold from Szczesny errors, and you blame Arsene, again. You dont like Arsene, we know that, but you got to have some kind of limit how far you will go with this crusade.

Wait you cant be serious about this IX. This is awful .The game was sold from Szczesny errors, and you blame Arsene, again. You dont like Arsene, we know that, but you got to have some kind of limit how far you will go with this crusade.

I like Wenger a lot, I just don't think he's a good enough manager for Arsenal in this era. He has continually failed to recognise the need for key positions, his training methods and the way he utilises our players results in a new injury crisis every year, and most important of all: he has no tactical awareness.

Football has evolved faster than Wenger has in the last ten years. He is a dinosaur.

What is the excuse for the losses we've endured this season? Southampton had their best players sold and a new manager, they are doing better than us. Stoke have a new manager and vastly inferior brutes, they beat us. Man Utd beat us when they were piss poor awful with a brand new manager still trying to figure out what players to use in what positions. Etc.

Southampton played as a unit today. They have been all season. Give me one reason why Wenger wouldn't be able to do that with the players at his disposal.

Football is a team sport. It is of fundamental importance that the core foundation is that the team plays as a unit. Everything else is secondary. Wenger is playing like he has eleven individuals on the pitch, and if they happen to gel occasionally he's done a good job.

It's mind-blowing, and even the most hard bitten Wenger fanatic should be worried about this pattern.