Southampton and Shane Long make Arsenal suffer in 4-0 thumping
Southampton 4 - 0 ArsenalHome team scorers
Cuco Martina 19
Shane Long 55
Jose Fonte 69
Shane Long 90 +1:35
Cuco Martina unleashes a 30-yard thunderbolt which gave Southampton the lead in their 4-0 defeat of Arsenal.
The first thought, when Cuco Martina’s goal-of-the-season contender rippled into the corner of Petr Cech’s net, related to the continued implausibility of this Premier League season’s plot-lines. The Rotterdam-born Curaçao international right-back was making his full league debut for Southampton and not even he could have dreamed this up beforehand.
But it really did happen and, for the second season in succession, Southampton did win this fixture. Last time out, on New Year’s Day, it had seemed like less of a surprise. Southampton were flying then and Arsenal, of course, are always prone to locating a banana skin. Southampton’s 2-0 victory will be remembered for the Arsenal goalkeeper, Wojciech Szczesny, making a couple of bad errors and then sparking up a cigarette by the shower area of the dressing-room.
This time Arsenal crashed even harder and it did Arsène Wenger no credit that he sought to blame the referee, Jon Moss, for Southampton’s first three goals. The Arsenal manager complained there had been an offside in the buildup to Martina’s opener, a foul by Shane Long before the second and an erroneously awarded corner on the third.
“Only the first three? He didn’t say anything about the fourth goal?” Ronald Koeman, the Southampton manager, asked. “If you lose 4-0 and you talk about the referee – it’s not my away of analysing a football match. It was not about the referee tonight.”
This game was about Southampton’s desire to fire an upturn after a dismal sequence of results – they had drawn one and lost five of their previous six – their physical sharpness and, yes, their quality, as epitomised by Martina’s unlikely blockbuster. Koeman described their second-half performance as “perfect”.
It was also about Arsenal’s timidity and their infuriating habit of going missing when a big opportunity beckons. After Leicester City’s defeat at Liverpool earlier in the day Arsenal knew a victory would lift them to the top of the table. They blew it. Was it the pressure? “I don’t think so,” Wenger said. “But it’s difficult to check that.”
Arsenal had beaten Manchester City in their previous game to fire their title credentials but they undermined them here. Long bullied Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielny, the Arsenal centre-halves, and it was difficult to remember too much of note from the visitors in an attacking sense.
So many of their key players were invisible and once José Fonte had made the game safe with the third goal, Southampton threatened to turn the scoreline into a humiliation. Long was denied only by a post in the 89th minute before he added his second and his team’s fourth in stoppage time. Wenger said that Long had “got away with a lot” in a physical sense. Mertesacker and Koscielny will bear the scars.
Koeman had lost Graziano Pellè and Cédric Soares to injuries in training – Pellè, he said, would be out for “some weeks” with a knee problem – but how Long and Martina, the £1m summer signing from FC Twente, seized their opportunities in their stead.
Goals had been a problem for Southampton but you would not have known it from Martina’s screamer, after Mertesacker had headed away Ryan Bertrand’s left-wing cross. Martina moved on to the ball, 30 yards out, to the right of centre and he made the split-second decision to take on the shot. With the outside of his right boot. Against one of the best goalkeepers in the division.
The very attempt was audacious but everything about the execution was perfect. The shot started yards outside Cech’s far post but it bent back wickedly inside it. When it swelled the net,Martina stood still for a moment, his arms outstretched. Even he looked stunned.
Moments earlier Martina had been guilty of a poor clearance which went straight to Nacho Monreal but the Arsenal full-back’s shot was kept out by Maarten Stekelenburg. The defensive jitters, though, belonged to Arsenal.
Mertesacker’s clearance in the 25th minute found only James Ward-Prowse, who advanced, jinked inside and dragged his shot wide. Koscielny made an error that almost ushered in Steven Davis and, just before the interval, Long outpaced Mertesacker but his finish was high.
The second half was all Southampton. Virgil van Dijk saw a header narrowly ruled out for offside before Sadio Mané fired the break for the second. Koscielny went down under what he insisted was a trip by Long, who continued his run to tuck home from Mané’s cross.
Fonte’s goal showcased his desire to reach Bertrand’s corner before Koscielny – his header was laced with power – and thereafter it became a question of how many Southampton would add. The substitute Dusan Tadic tested Cech before Long finished his tormenting of the Arsenal defence with his late surge.
Guardian
