That was an awesome match to watch for everyone involved…even if it cost the Gunners the title. Arsenal has all but blown their chances at the Premier League title as they only managed a heroic 3-3 draw with Southampton, giving Man City a wide-open gap to jump above them.
I guess if you’re going to blow the Premier League title, you’d might as well do it in style.
Arsenal and Southampton played one of the most exciting and thrilling games in the Premier League season as the Gunners came back from being down 3-1 in the final 5 minutes of the game, though said draw came at a cost for Arsenal as the now only sit 5 points above Man City with the later having played two games less.
Despite being a Man United fan (and definitely not an Arsenal sympathizer in any way), I’m actually really annoyed with Arsenal as I truly believed this team would break the boring Man City-Liverpool title domination and be the first non-Liverpool/Man City team since 2016/17 Chelsea to win the league.
Again, even though I’m a Man United fan, I don’t want to see the Premier League turn into La Liga or Ligue 1 with one or two teams winning the league year after year. Thus, Arsenal finally breaking their 20-year title drought and becoming the champions of England again would have been a less revolting sight than watching Man City lift their 7th title in the last 11 years or Liverpool winning their 20th title to equal Manchester United’s all-time record.
Nevertheless, this collapse is still rather surprising as up until the last three weeks, Arsenal were playing fantastic football.
Prior to that 2-2 draw against Liverpool, which now seems like will be the catalyst that derailed Arsenal’s season, the Gunners had overcome what should have been a devastating 3-1 loss to Man City by winning the next 6 Premier League games in a row by a combined score of 23-6.
They were thrashing through midtable, Top-6, and relegation teams alike as they destroyed Everton 4-0 (currently 18th), Leeds 4-1 (currently 16th), Fulham 3-0 (currently 9th), and Crystal Palace 4-1 (currently 12th), leaving no one to doubt the validity of their title aspirations.
Players like Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, and Martin Odegaard were literally scoring at will (the trio combined for 12 goals in that 6-game stretch) by scoring an average of 4 goals/game, Gabriel Jesus returned to the side in style with a 2-goal performance against Leeds (which just so happens to be their last league victory), and the defense heralded by William Saliba only conceded 6 goals.
However, in the last three games, the Gunners have scored an average of just 2 goals/game, they’ve drawn against Liverpool (a Top-6 side this season), Southampton and West Ham (both relegation sides), the front four has missed some huge chances (ex: Bukayo Saka’s penalty miss vs. West Ham), and the defense has given up 7 goals in just three games as Saliba has been sidelined with a back injury.
And this Southampton game was the accumulation of their bad run of forum as Aaron Ramsdale gave the ball away for the first Southampton goal within the first minute, a defensive lapse by Gabriel and Oleksander Zinchenko allowed Theo Walcott to rush in behind him and score Southampton’s second after just 14 minutes, and then Bukayo Saka and Zinchenko lost Duje Ćaleta-Ca at the back post on a corner to give Southampton a 3-1 lead with a little over 25 minutes left.
Now, Martin Odegaard and then Bukayo Saka scoring goals in the 87th and 90th minutes, respectively, was thrilling to watch, especially so given Leandro Trossard hit the crossbar, Gabriel Jesus went down in the box, and Reiss Nelson had a shot go narrowly wide in the eight minutes of stoppage time, but it was all in vain as the Gunners simply ran out of time.
Essentially, the injury bug and the general inconsistency that inexperienced title contenders usually face both happened at the same time in the worst possible moment, leaving the Gunners completely helpless to stop Man City’s rush to the title.
Sure, the Gunners still have a game against Manchester City (next week, in fact) to push their lead up to eight points if they win, but City will still have another two games in hand no matter how the result of that clash goes.
And, seeing how Arsenal have gone winless since April 1st and Manchester City have won their last eleven domestic games (including a 3-0 win over Sheffield United in the FA Cup Semi-Finals earlier today), I think City overtakes Arsenal regardless of the outcome of their match on April 26th.
I guess you always have next year to win the Premier League title, Arsenal fans. I mean, it’s not like you’ve been saying that every year since the Invincibles lifted the golden Premier League trophy back in 2003/04.
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