Arsenal Draw A Blank Against Southampton

Arsenal have been on a bad run of results in the Premier League and they faced Southampton last night knowing three points were a necessity. They were three points behind the leaders Leicester and level on points with City while Spurs were breathing down their necks just two points back. They also owed Southampton a defeat after losing 4-0 away to them over the festive period.

Arsene Wenger made seven changes from the team which beat Burnley in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday. Petr Cech, Hector Bellerin and Nacho Monreal all came in at the back with Aaron Ramsey, Mathueu Flamini, Mesut Ozil and Joel Campbell coming in higher up the pitch. The surprises were probably the omissions of Francis Coquelin and Per Mertesacker and I can only assume Coquelin is still a little short on match fitness while Gabriel Paulista might just be winning his place in the team from Mertesacker.

It was the first time Ozil and Alexis Sanchez had played together in over two months and I thought their class would be the difference between the teams. Alexis has been badly missed while he was out injured, but the team managed to stay competitive and keep in the title fight. I had hoped his return would be the catilyst the team needed to kick on for the rest of the season.

All too often in recent games Arsenal have started slowly and have depended on their second half performance to try to get a result. I witnessed that first hand in the FA Cup third round game against Sunderland and they did more or less the same against Burnkey last Saturday. It hasn't worked in the league though with slow starts against Liverpool and Chelsea costing points and very little happening in the draw with Stoke. 

There were good chances for Arsenal in that first half though and Ozil probably should have put the best of them away. Southampton had their moments too in a close first half and Arsenal knew they had to pick up the pace after the break. 

They did pick up the pace and continued to make good chances after the break, but a combination of poor finishing and good goalkeeping from Fraser Forster combined to keep the game scoreless. Southampton manager Ronald Koeman admitted that it was a lucky point for his team after the game, but that's of little consolation to Arsenal.

The result was all the worse for Arsenal when the rest of the teams in the top six all won. They're now five points behind Leicester and two behind City while Spurs also overtook them on goal difference. It's far from over for Arsenal at this stage, but they have to get themselves out of this rut or the league will disappear into the horizon very quickly.

Maybe the most alarming statistic from the game was that it was the first time Arsenal had failed to score for three games in a row in seven years. Their lack of goals at home in particular is very worrying and it's something which has to be remidied very quickly. Despite getting his fair share of goals this season I'm still not convinced Olivier Giroud is the top class striker they need if they're going to compete at the very top. The problem is there is no real competition for Giroud and he has to play in almost every game. I think the failure to sign a striker in the summer has come back to haunt the team at a time when a new face up front could be what the team needs to kickstart the remainder of the season. 

Ozil certainly did his part as he created chance after chance for teammates, but none of them were put away. There's still 14 league games to go, but they can't allow the teams above them to steal too much of a march on them. There are some crucial games coming up for Arsenal and they need to get their shooting boots on very quickly.

With Leicester going to City this weekend there's a chance for Arsenal to close that gap and Spurs travel to City the following week while Arsenal play Leicester. Arsenal need to take six points from the game against Bournemouth on Sunday and that game against Leicester to get right in among the thick of it.

It's hard to see too many positives from last night's draw, but at least they picked up one point. There was a stage in the game where I thought it was set up for Southampton to nick a 1-0 win with a sucker punch as Arsenal pushed forward looking for a winner. Maybe that might have happened in previous seasons and that point could be fondly remembered if the league finishes up as close as it looks like it will at the moment.

That's it for today.

See you tomorrow.

Manuel Pellegrini not thinking about future amid Man City's title race

After an eventful week, Manchester City boss Manuel Pellegrini refuses to look any further forward than Saturday's Premier League title showdown with Leicester.

Pellegrini, who announced his impending departure from the Etihad Stadium on Monday as Pep Guardiola prepares to take over, watched his team grind out a 1-0 victory at struggling Sunderland on Tuesday evening to set themselves up perfectly for their weekend clash with the surprise leaders.

Asked if the evening had been tinged with an extra emotion, he said: "No, no, no, no. I am not thinking about that, I am just trying to have a good season.

"That was why it was so important before we play against Leicester next week at home to win these points away and be involved in all the competitions.

"I am just thinking about that and not the future. About the future, I really don't want to talk now. I'm just thinking about the present.

"Now we must focus our minds to beat Leicester, who are the leaders of the table, so we are just thinking about that and not about the future. We don't know what will happen to any one of us."

City had to fight all the way to the whistle to claim their win on Wearside in what was their ninth game in 32 days.

It was secured by Sergio Aguero's 17th goal of the season, an expert 16th-minute finish, but had it not been for fine saves from Joe Hart to deny Jermain Defoe, Billy Jones and debutant Wahbi Khazri, the Black Cats might have emerged with something to show for their efforts.

Pellegrini said: "It was a very difficult game and I am very pleased about the result because it was our third game in a week. We played on Wednesday, the [Capital One Cup] semifinal against Everton, after that the FA Cup against Aston Villa on Saturday and now on Tuesday with a lot of players injured, so the same names have played all the games.

"We were playing against Sunderland, who played 10 days ago, the last game, so it was very important to win, especially here at the Stadium of Light. It's not a stadium where we normally have good results, so it was a very important game."

City remain three points adrift of Leicester, while their hosts are still four points shy of safety, a fact which was not lost on manager Sam Allardyce, whose emotions were decidedly mixed.

Allardyce said: "It's the most disappointed I have been since I have been here with the result ending up the way it is because we deserved so much more.

"You can lose a game and say to yourself -- well, some of the games we have lost since I have been here, we haven't deserved anything other than that, but today, we deserved so much more, which makes it so much more disappointing for us all."

Allardyce knows time is running out fast for Sunderland to dig themselves out of trouble, but he was at least buoyed by their level of performance.

He said: "There will be a stage where, when we get to single figures, we might have to be looking at what we have looked at for many years, where we have to string three or four wins together.

"I have been trying not to get there, but as it looms ever closer, it looks like that might be the case.

"But had the performance brought the victory that we probably deserved today, I'd feel a lot happier and a lot more comfortable. But it wasn't to be and it's very disappointing."