I missed the first few mins because for some stupid reason Roku required me to reactivate w/ a code, login with my Gold account (which I had to lookup). But streaming is so so much better than TV which you just turn on and it works. p.s. I only see one stream available in my NBCSports app on Roku. THere is no alternate with "natural sound", which I had really been looking forward to. I guess NBC can only deliver that if there's only one match per slot? p.p.s. Auba just hit the bar and my stream crapped with "Loading..." What was I saying about streaming?
Oh yeah, forgot about that. Need to watch that sometime. Meanwhile, we're doing that thing again where we start the match very lively and with promise. What are the chances we'll get anything from this early effort... as in a goal?!
Hey hey hey! Good luck finally comes our way!! Eddie takes advantage of a keeper f-up. 1-0 to the Arse!!!! Woohoo
OK I guess but surely we need more than a one goal cushion!!! Soton are no slouches. Ings made a difficult control look easy a while back, then started a team move where they were inches away from equalizing.
Funny shot of Sokratis just a minute ago: Bouncing his knee, smelling his armpit, then biting his nails. I guess he's not aware of being fair game for TV cameramen. Meanwhile my stream crapped again. But we're a minute from HT. Let's hope we don't concede while my screen is frozen!
I think I saw 4-2-3-1 also, with Xhaka and Ceballos as the 2. Apparently Arteta employs formation fluidity. I guess he learned that from Pep?
I haven't been watching the first 15' of 2T closely, but it seems that we're sitting back and ceding possession to Soton? Protecting a 1-0 lead for 45'? No! I always hate that. Surely suicidal.
Willock on for Pepe at 63'. Did he really do anything much while on the pitch? I still haven't written him off, but his positive production seems really low considering what we paid for him.
Tierney down with painful cramping. Kola has come down to replace him. With 5 subs and generally poor fitness in our squad, why is Arteta so hesitant to make earlier subs??? p.s. And then he's left with no other choice but to make all his remaining subs in one big batch, after the 2nd water break. Seems like he may need to rethink his substitution strategy.
78' and Laca & AMN coming on shortly. That will leave the 5th sub unusable, as per the announcer. Again, strange subbing strategy by Mikel. Nice to see AMN out the dog house though!
Red card for Stephens for denial of goal-scoring-opp by Auba. Free kick on the edge of the box. And we play a man up for the last 5-10 mins.
Willock!! 2-0. After Laca's hard shots (yes 2 in a row) finally rebound to Joe for an easy finish. Game over! Right?
0-2! Willock! According to the Guardian PbP Arsenal has looked fairly strong. Much to do with the opponent but I'll take it.
I feel like we always play like shit against Southampton, so I will very much take it. That Boxing Day 2015 thrashing is still burned into my memory.
Woohoo! We get our first points since lockdown (and 3pts at that) Woohoo! The OP lives to start another thread Woohoo! We move all the way up to lofty 9th place
Also, shout outs to Rob Holding and Emi Martinez. They anchored the central defense and did quite well. Mustafi wasn't bad either. And thankfully nobody pulled a Luiz.