These are the thoughts of some AA regulars ……

Kelsey ……

If I continue in the way I am known to express myself I am apparently a doomer but others who can be far more critical than me don’t even get a response.

I actually thought apart from the now familiar juttering start that we were very unlucky to not win and there is no doubt that their keeper was on top form.

I don’t have the technical knowledge of others such as GIE and there is no doubting our stamina but I feel every game we play we are getting more and more predictable that I can see the next move before it happens and therefore if I can see it so every team we play will have a plan to stop us which in recent weeks has led to no wins in four vital matches whilst the other contenders march on despite dropping the odd point here and there.

We really either don’t have a different way of playing or AW will not alter things dramatically.You decide.

We will know in the next month if we are still in with a shout of the title or (dread to think) in a battle for forth yet again.

The margins in so many games are getting finer as the seasons roll on.

I don’t usually get involved in a discussion about refs but in the first half he showed a definite bias against us.

I am not going to critisize any one player only to say the Kos/Gabriel partnership is not as good as I thought it would be.

It now becomes very much a mental thing for all of the top 5 either to sustain winning or getting back to winning, and we all know which category we fall into.

GoonerB ……..

I have a feeling that many will not want to discuss anything Arsenal or AW related his morning. I think a lot will run for cover which I wish didn’t happen because to get the Yin and Yang going we need all the regular contributors from those more negative to those more positive.

I am somewhere in betwixt most views. On one hand I recognise that we had a more difficult run of fixtures recently (say compared to Spuds). As such the league title is still on and there is till reason to feel hopeful. Have a look at GIE’s input and predictions from late yesterday.

On the other hand I would say that we don’t take care of our own business well enough. I get that the ref was awful and agreed. This would have influenced the balance of the game to some degree. Not enough though for me that we shouldn’t have been able to overcome Southampton at home with the team put out and the players available to us. The referee thing has now also been used too much to explain away poor results.

I get their keeper had a blinder and that it was just one of those games. The problem is that every season we, more so it seems than any other team, seem to drop points against teams whose keeper has his best game of the season. Now I would look at why this happens so often and wonder if there is something about the way we attack that is slightly different that gives a keeper a better chance to put in these performances.

Unfortunately we just don’t seem to take care of our own business and look at our own failings and weaknesses. That needs to be done first before we start portraying ourselves as some unlucky put upon club.

Chas ……

I don’t understand how those who like to constructively criticise can recognise:

that the ref was bent
that Forster had a brilliant game
we created more than enough chances to win by 2 or 3

But still want to have a pop at management for:

lack of tactics
lack of signings
thinking Giroud is a striker ( 🙂 – amazingly it didn’t seem to be him that was culpable last night).

Aren’t you simply

a) reacting to the result and the fact we didn’t score or
b) simply carrying on seeing things with your own confirmation bias?

Cage rattling? 🙂

Can you add anything to the debate? ……..

How times have changed since we last visited The Saints. We lost 2-0 with Chesney making a couple of poor decisions which led to Marlboro-Gate and the young Pole being sent to Rome (I can think of worse punishments).

Can you imagine our current glovesman  behaving like TPIG? Cech started his Arsenal career with a poor game at home to WHU, 3 months later and the man is being spoken of in the same breath as David Seaman, who is without question the best AFC gloveman of my lifetime (sorry Bob Wilson).

If we win the title – sorry – when we win the title Cech will have been a major contributor; Ozil and Sanchez may be the obvious choice for our most important player but Cech is hugely influential, just think how we did in the CL and COC without him.

Important match tonight; it is wonderful beating MC but the Xmas rush would be ruined if we drop points. A draw is barely the bare minimum.

Our lads must be rested, confident and relaxed – they have been out playing Santa at local hospitals and sitting playing Xbox on their plush leather settees; they should be ready for a battle today.

And it is sure to be a battle because S’ton are in trouble‚ playing poorly, losing regularly and unable to score. I expect Koeman to pack the midfield, fill out the flanks and sit his team very deep. Nothing new when teams play Arsenal but not what we expect from the usual free-flowing football he promotes.

Wanyama: Should we sign him in January? S’ton are saying that no-one is leaving but money talks. My opinion is that he is a fine destructive MF but hasn’t the passing skills to improve our team

Amazing to think of the talent sold by S’ton over the past few years. Theo, Ox, Chambers, MonkeyBoy, Lovgren, Schneiderlin, Clyne, Luke Shaw, Lallana etc etc

As to our Brave Lads, the team will surely be the same as beat MC, much has been talked about rotation and the need to rest players but with the  home games with Bournemouth and Newcastle to come  AW can afford to wait.

We are learning to win games with less possession, today we shall surely have the majority of the ball and need to find different solutions, with the Ozil/Ramsey axis we are more creative and not so reliant upon tricky/tacky when facing PTB tactics.

Really looking forward to tonight.

COYRRG