The Gunners have lost their first game after 22 matches in all competitions, no thanks to Charlie Austin’s 85th-minute header which turned out to be the winning goal of the night.
Southampton have been struggling since the beginning of the season and they were lying helplessly in the relegation zone.
Before the game
After their 2-2 draw against Manchester United, the St Mary’s outfits terminated Mark Hughes’ contract with the club, a result of his poor run of results with the team.
They hired former RB Leipzig’s manager Ralph Hasenhüttl, during the week and charged him with the responsibility to lead the team to safety.
Unfortunately — as we all thought, Arsenal’s challenge come too soon for the manager who is just getting to know his players.
Many pundits tipped the Gunners to have a free ride to victory against the Saints who have little or no knowledge about their manager’s style of play.
After avoiding defeats in 22 matches, the Gunners were tipped to trash their opponent despite being the travelling side.
During the game
Contrary to most predictions from fans and pundits, the Saint took control of the game right from the blow of referee’s whistle.
They deservedly took the lead in the 20th minute via Danny Ings who connected brilliantly to Matt Targett’s cross to nod home the ball past Bernd Leno.
The Gunners equalized almost immediately as Henrikh Mkhitaryan found the back of the net after being put through on goal by Nacho Monreal’s wonderful pass.’
After some minutes of action, the Saints restored their lead. Ings was available to wreak another havoc to the Unai Emery’s side — whose backline has been depleted due to injuries (Rob Holding and Konstantinos Mavropanos) and suspension (Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Shkodran Mustafi) —
before halftime.
Just like the former Liverpool striker, Mkhitaryan scored his second of the night when his shot took a slight deflection off Jannik Vestergaard before finding its way into the net.
As it looks like we are set for another draw at St Mary’s Stadium, Charlie Austin rose the highest to score a wonderful last-ditch header which condemned Emery to his third defeat as Arsenal manager.
The Gunners were far from impressive and the defeat must serve as an eye-opener to Emery and his players.
The League is becoming more competitive, they can’t afford to repeat such performance in subsequent matches if they must qualify for next season’s Champions League competition.
With Chelsea’s 2-1 victory over Brighton at the Amex stadium earlier today, the Gunners are now fifth on the League standings. They now trail the Blues with two points.
As for Southampton, they now move up to the 17th position and they are safe from relegation threat —at least for now
