Santi keeps cool head
Saints boss Puel angry at referee as he fails to stop game for injury in build up to Cazorla’s winner...
DECOROUS is the word to describe Claude Puel’s reaction to what was a grandstand finish manufactured by problematic refereeing.
Arsenal won this at the death, in the fourth minute of injury time, thanks to Santi Cazorla’s penalty, but the real story was not of any relentless late barrage but Bobby Madley’s blind spot in the build-up.
Laurent Koscielny lay inside the six-yard box after taking a whack to the head in a previous phase, Madley somehow deciding that play ought to continue. Arsene Wenger would normally hold a dim view of that, given his premier central defender might have been concussed, but it was Puel who stood aghast at the referee’s incompetence.
Not only did Koscielny have a head injury, for which he received lengthy treatment before Cazorla stroked past Fraser Forster, but his position — slap bang in the middle of Southampton’s box — could only constitute obstruction.
He was two yards away from Jose Fonte and Olivier Giroud as they tangled in the away area. Madley called the actual penalty incident correctly after laws on grappling were tightened this summer, Fonte with a chunk of Giroud’s shirt, but the big call had come before then.
‘Yes,’ said Puel, when asked if the game should have been stopped. ‘I’m angry for my players. I don’t like to speak about decisions but we can see in the first four games three penalties conceded. It’s a big frustration because we played really well. Sometimes in one moment you can lose a game. We had chances to win this game before then.’
That they did, Shane Long guilty of missing two glorious opportunities to nudge Southampton ahead as their hunt for a first Premier League victory goes on. The first saw the striker clip harmlessly wide when clean through and the other, pouncing on a rebound, was too weak to cause harm. ‘When you lose the first home game you can’t afford drop points in the second because it adds to anxiety at home,’ said Wenger. ‘It’s not what you really want. They told me in the dressing room it was 100 per cent a penalty.’
Yet there is no getting away from the fact that north London was anxious for much of this, falling behind and then having to clamber a way back.
For so long Arsenal had looked laboured again at the Emirates, a culture of nervousness not looking like changing this season despite some fairly lavish spending in the transfer market.
Wenger had £52million worth of new signings starting for him in the muted Lucas Perez, from Deportivo La Coruna and Shkodran Mustafi. ‘Both are short,’ said Wenger. ‘They were a bit surprised by the pace. It’s easier for a defender to adapt. Perez has played one game, the first game of La Liga and then didn’t play because they knew he was leaving.’
Wenger hopes Mustafi will halt their defensive ills but he was bypassed in Southampton’s attack as they took a bizarre 18th-minute lead. It goes down as a Petr Cech own goal but Arsenal barely helped themselves, Mustafi’s relative absence forcing Nacho Monreal into bringing Nathan Redmond down on the edge of the box.
Dusan Tadic’s free-kick was not overly threatening and it was not a pacy hit either, yet Cech could only tip on to the crossbar before then becoming the victim of misfortune. The ball painfully trickled over the line, a two-second delay before the visiting fans realised they were ahead. Tadic was a touch sheepish in his celebration, too.
Arsenal were behind for a mere 11 minutes, though, Koscielny’s bicycle kick flew past Forster to level it up, Virgil van Dijk having fallen asleep after Francis Coquelin and Jordy Clasie contested Cazorla’s corner at the back post.
Clasie could not rush out quick enough to prevent Koscielny thumping home on his 31st birthday, with Southampton’s claims that the central defender’s boot was too high on connection falling on deaf ears.
The Frenchman was immense all day, leaving the Emirates with a heavily swollen eye. Puel was left battered and bruised for altogether different reasons.