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LONDON — Were Arsenal in crisis? It certainly felt like they were teetering on the brink of it 45 minutes before kick off here. Their captain banished from the squad, two woeful road defeats in their rearview mirror and a plentiful supply of questions over whether their 10 game unbeaten run in the autumn had been nothing more than swatting aside the Premier League’s low hanging fruit.
Now? They are a point off fourth heading into Wednesday’s clash with the team that occupy the promised land, West Ham United. Had you offered Mikel Arteta that position at the start of the season, let alone after they’d lost their first three games of the season without scoring a goal, he would surely have taken it. At this stage in the past two seasons Arsenal were an afterthought in the top four conversation. They at least have a fighting chance now.
Yet, it is hard to imagine that they will still do if they play like they did in this 3-0 win over an injury-riddled Southampton. Certainly there were moments when everything clicked into gear — the 16 pass move that ended in Alexandre Lacazette thudding home the opening goal — but it took some time before they outnumbered the early moments at the Emirates Stadium which had fans suitably worried to watch them peering through fingers covering their eyes.
Now that it’s over, this matched looked like a romp and by the end it felt like one. Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka were cannoning the ball off posts, getting into the penalty area at will and serving up the sort of assertive performance from a team in the lead that Arsenal showed no indication of delivering when they were in the ascendancy against Everton and Manchester United. How could this be squared with the team who so rarely ventured into the Southampton half in the first half?
Goals from Lacazette and the exquisite Martin Odegaard had them two up but aside from those the only effort that…
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Source : cbssports
