Saints struggling ahead of visit to Arsenal

Bournemouth (3) 3 v Southampton (0) 1

Evanilson 17

Ouattara 32

Semenyo 39

Harwood-Bellis 51

By Kaz Mochlinski at the Vitality Stadium

Premier League

Matchweek 6

Talking Points

Arsenal’s next league opponent is a club careering quickly into crisis, after Southampton’s 23-minute first-half collapse condemned them to a damaging defeat at South Coast rivals Bournemouth.

Three goals, from Evanilson, Dango Ouattara, and Antoine Semenyo, between the 17th and 39th minutes, put Bournemouth in commanding control and set up their first home victory of the season.

It ended a run of five Southampton matches without being beaten at the Vitality Stadium, where Bournemouth had last defeated their nearest neighbours in the 2015-16 season.

More urgently, the Saints remain winless in this Premier League campaign so far. Having picked up just one point from six games, this is now the joint worst start to a league season in Southampton’s history, equalling 1998-99.

Yet it could have been even worse. At half-time the visitors were heading to the bottom of the table. Only some semblance of a recovery and a goal from Taylor Harwood-Bellis kept Southampton from propping up the Premier League.

The Saints are still down in 19th, with only Wolves below them on goal difference. And their next two away matches are at Arsenal and Manchester City. Moreover, they will head to London after a turn-around of just five days.

That leaves very little time for the Southampton manager Russell Martin to reset the side. However, it may be more that he has been tinkering with the team too much, which could have contributed to their present predicament.

Martin has a great deal of credit collected from the club’s promotion last season through the Play-Off Final. But half-a-dozen matches into their Premier League return, the questions over his selections and tactics are multiplying.

Having found a workable system of 4-1-4-1 or 4-2-3-1, which yielded an improvement in performance in the previous two games, Martin swapped to a perplexing 4-2-4 with no striker for the visit to Bournemouth.

Playing two wingers either side of two midfielders, neither of whom managed to morph into a false No.9, was one of the strangest formations seen in the top division recently, and it didn’t survive into the second half.

It was especially odd as Martin had five strikers among his substitutes at Bournemouth, and brought on three of them after half-time - although the visitors’ only goal was scored by a defender.

The changes were positive, and they evened out the previously unequal contest, but by the time they were made the result was already effectively decided. And Martin’s post-match criticism of his players might in hindsight be something that he comes to regret.

“We were soft. Whatever personnel you have on the pitch, whatever way you play, if you lack the fight and aggression and spirit and togetherness and courage that we lacked in the first half, you’re going to have a big, big problem.

“I didn’t recognise our team. I didn’t like a lot of what I saw, and I was hurt by the lack of spirit and fight. Normally I’m proud of them for the courage they show, but there was no aggression, no courage, no intensity to the play.”

And he added: “I’m coming off the pitch at the end of the game and I thanked them for running and fighting in the second half, and actually I don’t think you should ever thank them for that, that should be the bare minimum.”

The statistics are spectacularly against Southampton. They are on a club record run of 19 winless Premier League matches, with 14 defeats, since a 1-0 home victory against Leicester City in March 2023.

Already ahead of the Bournemouth game, Southampton were on the joint longest active run of top-flight matches without a clean sheet among current Premier League clubs, which they extended to 18.

They have conceded six goals from set-pieces this season, the highest number in the Premier League after six games. And they have lost their opening three league away matches for the first time in 12 years.

Then there is their summer signing Ben Brereton Diaz, who has now played 20 Premier League games without sharing in a victory, the most of any player in the history of the competition, with 15 of those being defeats.

Meanwhile, potentially Southampton’s best player, Kyle Walker-Peters, remained on the bench again as an unused substitute, in the last year of his current contract and embroiled in a dispute over extending it.

Against Arsenal, at least Jack Stephens will return from suspension and Will Smallbone could be back after injury. Plus Aaron Ramsdale will have something to prove to the Gunners after being sold in the summer.

Ramsdale has let in 10 goals in four league matches since his £18 million transfer from Arsenal, and he will hope to do better in North London on Saturday afternoon than he was able to on Monday night facing another of his former clubs.

At Bournemouth, if the Saints fans hadn’t suffered enough watching their team’s performance, they were informed at the end that the last train across the New Forest back to Southampton had been cancelled.

“Walk through the Forest, you’ve got to walk through the Forest!” sang the home supporters at the away section with delight. It is hard not to foresee more misery in prospect for Southampton in the near future.

Bournemouth: (4-2-3-1) Arrizabalaga - Smith, Zabarnyi, Senesi, Kerkez - Cook, Christie - Semenyo (Sinisterra 89), Tavernier (Scott 75), Ouattara (Kluivert 61) - Evanilson (Enes Ünal 75)

Southampton: (4-2-4) Ramsdale - Sugawara, Harwood-Bellis, Bednarek, Taylor - Downes, Ugochukwu (Aribo 46) - Cornet (Stewart 46), Dibling (Archer 76), Fernandes (Lallana 70), Fraser (Brereton Diaz 46)

Attendance: 11,243