Tavares back from the brink
There are an awful lot of negatives to take from Arsenal's defeat to Southampton so let's try and start off on a positive foot. After being left out of the starting XI for the loss to Brighton last week many though Nuno Tavares' Gunners career was over. The Portuguese full back had been subbed before the second half of each of his previous two starts, and despite being ostensibly the only left back at the club after Kieran Tierney's injury it still seemed Mikel Arteta did not trust him enough to feature again for his side.
When the news came through that Tavares was in the starting line up for the trip to St. Mary's it was something of a shock as Arteta had spent much of his pre-match press conference extolling the virtues of playing Granit Xhaka at left back instead. "Just look at the stats when the team has played with Granit as a left-back," the Spaniard said. "They don't get much better than that."
After last week's disaster though it appeared Arteta learned from his lesson restored the Swiss international to midfield. This opened the door for Nuno to return again and he did not disappoint.
What was so troubling about his brief outing at Selhurst Park was how positionally unaware he seemed in his more defensive role, but on Saturday he appeared far more switched on. It's no secret that the 22-year-old's strengths lie in the opposition half of the field, but at times he could even be seen drifting into the centre back position to cover for Gabriel when the Brazilian went charging out to press Armando Broja.
Tavares also looked much more accomplished doing the inverted bits of the 'inverted full back' role he was playing for some of this match as he boasted a 93.5% pass success rate. His ambidexterity means this has the potential to be a strength in the final third, and willingness to come inside certainly offers something different to Tierney. It was telling that midway through the first half as Arsenal retreated for a Southampton goal kick, Arteta made a point of yelling across to him from the touchline and signalling two big thumbs up.
When he did get forward it helped that, unlike against Palace, he had the insurance policy of Xhaka in behind him playing a far more withdrawn role than the advanced eight we've seen in recent months. Towards the end Tavares even seemed to be finding some of the confidence that has been so elusive for him as he unleashed two shots from distance that probably would have got stuck under his feet in matches prior.
He was taken off again although this time there can be little doubting that it was due to tactical reasons as Arteta sent on Nicolas Pepe as a 'hail Mary' to try and rescue something from the South Coast. As he walked towards the dugout Tavares was greeted with chants of "Nuno, Nuno" from an Arsenal fanbase that seem to have now taken a more protective view of their 22-year-old prodigy. With the supporters back onside and his manager's trust slowly being restored it appears the Portuguese full back may have a future at the Emirates after all.
Arsenal waste "huge" opportunity
It's been a cutting few weeks for Arsenal but this result really stings. Given the fixtures they have remaining this season, most had consigned the Gunners hopes of making the top four as dead and buried. But just under an hour before kick off that all changed.
Tottenham's shock defeat to Brighton - a feeling Arsenal themselves know all too well - opened up the door that had previously been closed. The Champions League dream was alive again.
With the hope came the expectation and at kick off a raucous away end at St. Mary's seemed intent on hauling their team back into a race they had previously seemed out of. As the minutes ticked by though, the noise started to diminish as it became painfully clear that the Gunners were going to let this lifeline slip through their fingers.
"Huge," said Mikel Arteta when asked by football.london to describe how much of a missed opportunity this had felt like given the Spurs result. After being handed a chance to come back into the top four race that you could strongly argue their recent performances didn't deserve, Arsenal's failure to grab hold of it only served to heighten the sense of deflation at the full time whistle.
If you're really looking for positives you could argue that Antonio Conte's side proved that despite having the easier run in, nothing can really be finalised just yet. But with Chelsea, Manchester United and West Ham all to come in the next three matches it seems unlikley that the Gunners will be able to take advantage of any more slip ups if they do come.
If Arsenal are going to make the top four they're certainly now going to have to do it the hard way. Arteta admitted after the game that his team were "really down," and after what should have been an unexpected morale boost at St. Mary's they will now have to find a way to lift themselves again in order to pull off the seemingly impossible.
Different day, same problem for Arsenal
Arguably more frustrating than the situation with Spurs was the fact that Arsenal did have chances to win this game. Again they outscored their opponents on expected goals but yet again they found themselves going home with nothing.
The biggest chance of the first half probably fell to Bukayo Saka, who gave Fraser Forster the chance to make an admittedly splendid save after Gabriel Martinelli's low cross. The second period's golden opportunity fell to Emile Smith Rowe but the 21-year-old was again thwarted by the superb Saints stopper.
After the game Arteta was left scratching his head as to how yet again his side had managed to fail to score despite dominating. "Difficult to explain because this is football, not basketball. Because any other sport you win the game very comfortably and you’re talking about different things," the Spaniard said. "Difficult to explain but at the end of the day it’s decided in the boxes. They scored one goal, we didn’t."
In previous matches the blame could be put down to Alexandre Lacazette's profligacy in front of goal, but with the Frenchman out due to COVID that excuse no longer checked out. Eddie Nketiah was played up front - and actually did OK - but he could do little to solve the Gunners toothlessness up top.
Going back again to Spurs, what appears likely to be the crucial difference between the two sides in this race for the Champions League is that they have the players capable of converting those chances in the form of Heung-Min Son and Harry Kane, while Arsenal do not. Arteta was willing to admit this after the game and seemed to suggest that recruitment of more experienced finishers could be the solution.
"It’s what we have," the Spaniard told football.london in his post-match press conference. "The players that we have haven’t done it in this league. When you have world class players who have done it in the league for ten years, I would probably say that. I am the first one to defend them, to support them, you see how they try. The only way to do it is to insist and what happened today might happen the next day or the next month."
Arteta did of course have an experienced finisher who had done it in the Premier League for some time in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang but chose to let him go. While we don't fully know the reasoning behind that decision, with each passing defeat, Arsenal's failure to replace him in January is being brought into perspective.
The Gunners might well argue that the right striker wasn't available for them at the time, but if they are not playing Champions League football next season then you wonder whether they will be able to attract that player if he does come on the market in the summer. It's a risk they decided to take, but with just two goals from their last 73 shots, you do wonder where in the league this team might be with a more clinical finisher up front.
How exactly will Arsenal score again?
What's been remarkable about this recent drop off in form for Arsenal is how drastically the wheels appear to have come off every aspect of the team.
In the impressive run from December to March that now feels so long ago, the Gunners had a clearly defined system of play that for the first time seemed to be yielding consistent results. The attack would function in clearly defined groupings, with Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Cedric forming a trio on the right, and Kieran Tierney, Granit Xhaka and one of Gabriel Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe doing the same on the left. This was built off of quick, progressive passing and a system of pressing that enabled Arsenal to win the ball higher up the pitch. Looking at the Gunners side that took to the field at St. Mary's that simply no longer exists.
Saka's excellent first half opportunity was fashioned by Eddie Nketiah winning the ball up high, but aside from that there didn't appear to be any consistent way that Arsenal were going to create chances. Even Smith Rowe's second half effort came largely from Southampton's inability to clear the ball away.
As the end of the game quickly approached Mikel Arteta repeated his trick of throwing on all the senior attackers he had at his disposal to try and win the game. By full time Saka, Nketiah, Smith Rowe, Martinelli, Martin Odegaard and Nicolas Pepe were all on the pitch, but it's difficult to remember any opportunities that really troubled Fraser Forster in the closing stages save for a pot shots from distance.
After the game Arteta also bemoaned his side's inability to fashion more clear cut opportunities. "For the amount of time that we spent around the box it shows that we have a situation, we didn’t put them in the goal," the Spaniard said. "Because they have an exceptional goalkeeper today and because we didn’t have enough quality and enough capacity to break them down when we had the numbers and the situations open to do so."
He does still seem to want his team to play the same way that worked so well in the run prior to the last international break. On a hot day on the South Coast, injuries in both the first and second halves were used as unofficial water breaks in which the Spaniard could be seen frantically gesturing to both Ben White and Cedric that they had to look to play the ball forward instead of being so conservative in their passing.
In a time of crisis - which Arsenal most undoubtedly are in - it's crucial that a team is able to revert to certain automatisms to see them over the line. Right now it seems the Gunners don't have the faith in those patterns of play to maintain composure and come through these pressurised situations to get key results. Arsenal aren't scoring goals, and right now, it doesn't look as if they know how they're going to start doing that again.
