Southampton 0 Arsenal 2
Arsenal are not done with their pursuit of Champions League football just yet. Victory on the south coast ensures this team will carry their hopes of a top-four finish into the final week of the campaign, even if they still require Liverpool or, at a push, Manchester City to be wasteful in what games remain if Arsène Wenger is to maintain his remarkable record of qualifying for Europe’s elite club competition.
The win actually ended up feeling like a comfortable success, perhaps rather deceptively given the visitors had struggled to make inroads for an hour, with Southampton’s energy levels dipping as steadily as their threat over the latter stages. But underlining quality eventually told. Alexis Sánchez, peripheral for long periods, roused himself to ease the visitors ahead before Olivier Giroud’s header eight minutes from time deflated local optimism for good.
Arsenal have hoisted themselves to fifth, three points off City and four from Jürgen Klopp’s team. Both those clubs will be uneasy to find the usual suspects hovering unnervingly on their shoulder. The chase is on.
This had always felt the most daunting of Arsenal’s remaining fixtures, if only because their league record at this venue in recent years has been so wretched. Not since the Invincibles prevailed here in late 2003 had Wenger overseen a win in this fixture, for all that his team had put a Southampton second-string to the sword in the FA Cup earlier this year.
With their margin for error so small, the visitors knew they would need to shift the ball swiftly and incisively to unsettle a team who, while far from all-conquering in these parts, boast the capability of rising to the occasion. In that context, the fact the contest had spluttered into stoppage time at the end of the first half before Arsenal offered their first real burst of pace and threat felt rather damning.
The injection eventually came from Héctor Bellerín, on for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain who picked up a hamstring injury. The Spaniard was liberated beyond Ryan Bertrand to the byline by Sánchez's pass and whipped over a fine cross. Danny Welbeck, leaping in a challenge with Jack Stephens, perhaps should have converted in the centre only for the defender to muster enough of a block to choke the attempt and the chance was gone.
The period of patient possession summoned before the half-hour mark had yielded nothing. Wenger would have expected so much more, but the contributions from virtually all his forwards through that opening period had been horribly laboured as if fatigue was anchoring their approach play.
What zest there was on offer invariably came from those down Southampton's left, where Bertrand and Nathan Redmond were a pesky combination to unnerve an Arsenal backline shorn of Laurent Koscielny with calf trouble.
Petr Cech had to tip away Redmond's effort from 30 yards, conjuring a save with his left hand as he leapt to protect the top corner, having proved just as decisive in blocking Manolo Gabbiadini's earlier shot. Shkodran Mustafi, in for Koscielny, had provided a couple of timely blocks, most notably from Dusan Tadic, but there was a fragility to Arsenal's backline which felt familiar.
Local frustration was down to Southampton's tendency to overelaborate and fail to exploit Arsenal's vulnerability. Steven Davis, twice well-placed, ballooned efforts into the stands at either end and then, maybe conscious of those misses, chose to slip a pass wide for Cédric Soares rather than shoot when better placed.
Gabbiadini, so prolific in his early days in England, shot a free-kick over the defensive wall which veered just wide of an upright. The Italian has now gone more than six hours without a goal in the top flight and is starting to sport a trudge which smacks of despair. When he did ease round Cech here he found the angle too tight and could only place his shot into the side-netting.
By then his team were playing catch-up, undone as soon as Sánchez stirred. The visitors' slickest approach to that point had sliced their hosts apart, Mesut Özil easing a pass into the Chilean who collected and, in a breath, cut back inside to wrong-foot both Maya Yoshida and Stephens as they prepared to block. Sánchez's shift in body weight had effectively floored the heart of the home side's defence and granted him space from which to sight goal, with his finish placed calmly beyond Fraser Forster before any defender could react.
As a reminder of the forward's class, it was emphatic and, in truth, rather out of keeping with what had been a rather fitful occasion. Yet, once ahead, the visitors showed proper authority. Sofiane Boufal and Gabbiadini, mistiming a flick on a near-post header, might have hinted at restoring parity, but Arsenal's bite had returned with their threat on the counterattack always menacing.
When Sánchez floated a pass to the far post, there was Aaron Ramsey unmarked to nod back across goal and Giroud, only recently introduced, nodded easily beyond Forster from close range. Southampton could offer nothing in riposte.
(Guardian service)
