Arsenal 3-1 Southampton (Havertz 58’, Martinelli 68’, Saka 88’ | Archer 55’)
EMIRATES – It is a strange quirk of the week Arsenal have just enjoyed that over a spell of seven days, three games and nine goals scored, there can still be question marks raised over their creativity.
Indeed had a scare against Southampton not proven short-lived, this might have been a chastening tale of why Mikel Arteta should have been bolder in his initial team selection – but thanks to Bukayo Saka, all this is once again a footnote.
Saka’s goal and two assists blew away any fears about Arsenal’s ability to cope with such an intense run of fixtures while battling a growing injury list. At 23, he now has just one less Premier League goal contribution (91) than Ryan Giggs at the same age. No player in the top five European leagues is matching him for assists this season. Not bad for a player who, in the non-sensical world of football punditry, was the subject of debate this week over whether he is indeed “world-class”.
Arsenal needed it too, with the decision to start Thomas Partey at right-back leaving a central partnership of Jorginho and Declan Rice restricted. If not ultra-conservative, it felt unnecessary against a winless Southampton, and in order to facilitate Gabriel Jesus, Kai Havertz was then also forced deeper.
For a brief moment, as Cameron Archer latched onto a ball over the top, beat William Saliba and then David Raya, it might have been fatal. It wasn’t. Predictably, Flynn Downes was dispossessed close to the box, and Kai Havertz raced at Taylor Harwood-Bellis before scoring in his seventh home game in a row.
Amid fears that Jurrien Timber’s absence would render Arsenal immobile down the right, Partey can feel vindicated in his role for the part he played in cutting inside and teeing up Gabriel Martinelli, who narrowly stayed onside to put the ball through Aaron Ramsdale on the goalkeeper’s return to the Emirates.
And when substitute Leandro Trossard raced through to set up Saka for the third, it was a run full of the energy Arsenal had been missing for the previous half an hour.
So Saka’s heroics were only part of the story. Opportunities were always going to come against a Southampton as self-sabotaging as Russell Martin’s but Arsenal still had to be patient.
The defining moment was not one of the goals, but the double substitution that transformed the tone around the hour mark. Jesus and Jorginho off, Trossard and Mikel Merino on. Arsenal desperately needed a goal, but it was one at the other end, and the substitutions that came shortly afterwards, that helped them come alive.
Arteta was chastised for his initial starting XI, but deserves praise for turning it on its head. Martinelli is an example too to those around him for the manner in which he has revived his career this season.
The question for Arteta now is how much these dry spells bother him when Arsenal are eventually capable of turning on the style spectacularly, just as they did against Leicester City last weekend.
Martin Odegaard is still missed. There is hope he will be fit after the international break, and in the meantime there could be a greater role for Ethan Nwaneri. It is to his immense credit that at 17, so many already see him as the solution to Arsenal’s occasional staleness. But it is Saka who remains the game-changer.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/cCjT74G
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