Match Reaction vs Soton (away)

[Power n Glory]

I have a feeling we’ve adapted our style of play to preserve energy. We hardly pressed Southampton and we’ve been taking it easy for a while now so maybe the message is to win but play smart and save energy. Injuries are kicking in because of fatigue so maybe that has the team pumping their brakes. We really need to add numbers this Friday if that’s the worry. We need competition for places to keep performance levels up. Some won’t agree but I think Monreal has really stepped his game up to keep Gibbs out of the squad. Gibbs will be desperate to win his spot back. Same goes for Pod. You can see he really wants to get game time.

[Letters]

I was looking back (Oh statto.com, how I love thee) and noticed that in the Anfield '89 season we won the league with 76 points, Liverpool got the same of course and Forest in 3rd only got 64.
Last year we got 73 points and just about scraped into 4th.
The top few sides, bolstered by CL money and billionaire sugar-daddys, don't lose much these days.
You can't really afford slip-ups any more.

[Niall_Quinn]

I have a feeling we’ve adapted our style of play to preserve energy.

Little doubt about it. We are playing with little bit handbrake. Playing in short bursts, trying to grab a goal or two and then relying on the defence to edge it. Hasn't worked though, has it? Everyone is injured as usual. At some point if we want to really give this a go we'll have to really give it a go.

[Marc Overmars]

I have a feeling we’ve adapted our style of play to preserve energy. We hardly pressed Southampton and we’ve been taking it easy for a while now so maybe the message is to win but play smart and save energy. Injuries are kicking in because of fatigue so maybe that has the team pumping their brakes. We really need to add numbers this Friday if that’s the worry. We need competition for places to keep performance levels up. Some won’t agree but I think Monreal has really stepped his game up to keep Gibbs out of the squad. Gibbs will be desperate to win his spot back. Same goes for Pod. You can see he really wants to get game time.

This team is being built to contain.

Something you never thought you'd see from a Wenger side.

Now it's a serious struggle to win games after going behind, they're not used to it and it throws the initial game plan out the window.

[Niall_Quinn]

The Ramsey and Walcott injuries are bloody unfortunate, just as both had stepped up their game.

[Syn]

This team is being built to contain.

Something you never thought you'd see from a Wenger side.

Now it's a serious struggle to win games after going behind, they're not used to it and it throws the initial game plan out the window.

on the plus side, we rarely go behind. I'm really not bothered about the 'style' issue. For years arsenal fans have been moaning that results are more important than being pretty. If you want the best of both worlds, you need to pile up £30m squad players like Man City so that when your best attacking players (like Ramsey and Walcott) get injured, you've got a Dzeko-level player to bring on.

[Niall_Quinn]

The first half against Southampton is a worry whichever way you cut it. Haven't seen us play in such a negative and toothless manner for years.

[Power n Glory]

I was looking back (Oh statto.com, how I love thee) and noticed that in the Anfield '89 season we won the league with 76 points, Liverpool got the same of course and Forest in 3rd only got 64.
Last year we got 73 points and just about scraped into 4th.
The top few sides, bolstered by CL money and billionaire sugar-daddys, don't lose much these days.
You can't really afford slip-ups any more.

The two billionaire boy clubs finished on 75 (Chelsea) and 78 (Man City) points. Man Utd walked it on 89 points. A mid 80s score is usually what it takes to win the league and it’s been like that since United won the treble and walked the league on 91 points. We’ve had to push for a mid 80s score ever since and that was before the oil money. We’ve only hit a mid 80s score once since Vieria left and we won the FA Cup and we struggle to break past the 70+ mark in most seasons. It’s a tougher league but we’ve also dropped off quality wise. We need to raise the bar and start hitting the 80 mark again or high 70s at least.

[Syn]

The first half against Southampton is a worry whichever way you cut it. Haven't seen us play in such a negative and toothless manner for years.

Complete exaggeration. We've been just as poor and negative in many games this season. But we've usually won them so nobody gives it a second thought. That's just the way we play (the conservative part anyway, not the poor part).

[The Emirates Gallactico]

Not really relevant. Would we have jumped at this position having been 7 points clear less than 2 months ago is the more pertinent one.

Given that City's form since then has been P12 W11 D1 L0 it's hardly a huge capitulation.

@IBK - Letters point is spot on. We've actually been quite fairly good, it's just that City have been on a ridicolous level.

We all suspected that City and Chelsea would eventually close the gap as their squads were bigger and everyone still had them as the favourites so I don't know why we're all surprised all of a sudden. To be where we are is a cause of celebration, not misery and doom.

I think that drives home the point of just how buggeringly hard it is to win the Premiership.

It's been some time since we properly challenged and it's easy to forget the consistent level on you need to perform at.
We've been playing at a consistent level for months, the best league record of any English team in a calendar year last year.
But that does tend to gloss over the crunch period we experienced this time last year.

From Jan up until the Bayern away game in mid March, which is generally considered "The Turning Point", our record in all competitions was: W6 D3 L5

Which includes losses to Bayern, City, Chelsea, Sperms and Blackburn and draws with Swans, Soton and Pool.

It may be that this time of year is when the attritional effect of fatigue and injuries finally start to impact.

To an extent yes it does highlight how hard it can be at times, but it's not always this way.

Man Utd were 12 points clear this point last season, despite not playing that well and having dropped not that much fewer points than we have this season. It's just that everyone else was crap and no one else was consistent enough to put together a run to challenge for the league. City had thier problems with Mancini, Chelsea had the problems of Benitez/Di Matteo and we were our usual selves. If we were up against similar City and Chelsea teams this year, we've be storming the league right now (assuming the current Utd team with Moyes).

It's just our fucking luck isn't it?