Arsenal:
         Lehmann
Lauren Toure Campbell Cole
Parlour Vieira Gilberto Pires
   Henry Reyes (Clichy)

Pires had a couple of decent chances in the first 4 minutes. First a nice cross from Cole gave him a difficult volley at a stretch, Bob did well to force Niemi into a good save, dropping onto the ball on the goal-line. A minute later Vieira charged forward with the ball from the centre circle. He had Henry on his right and Bob on his left. Paddy looked to be trying to bring the ball into the box himself but pushed it a little too far ahead of himself to his left as he crossed over the D and Pires stepped in with a first-time shot that gave Niemi a much easier save close to his body.

A few minutes later Parlour had a shot charged down outside the box. It fell to Henry whose pass wide to Lauren was a bit loose and intercepted. Typically, Thierry made up for it by chasing the ball half the length of the pitch, eventually winning an Arsenal throw deep in our own half.

But Southampton started to get into things. They had a series of corners around the 10 minute mark, the first coming after a great last-ditch tackle from Campbell. Le Saux took them all, and the third was particularly dangerous having to be headed off the line at the far post (by Toure, I think) after clearing Lehmann at the near one.

Phillips and Ormerod looked lively but Le Saux was the main danger. From another corner Cole's half-clearance came to Le Saux centrally and his shot was blocked by Toure for yet another corner. Then Toure gave the ball away softly as we brought it out of defence, and when they attacked Ormerod went down a bit easily in the D. Fortunately the ref wasn't far away and saw it right. In their next attack Toure made amends with a cracking tackle on Le Saux.

More corners followed deflected shots from Vieiria and Le Saux. Then Ormerod made Toure look a bit of a chump as he beat him on the goal-line and flashed a cross through Lehmann's 6 yard box, but Phillips couldn't reach it.

Arsenal broke up the other end and Le Saux did well to intercept Bob's cut-back just before it reached Parlour for an easy chance.

Just past the half hour and Le Saux hit a long-range free-kick straight at Lehmann. Lehmann fed it forward quickly, and from the centre circle Pires slipped a pass forward for Henry to run onto from the left wing. He looked a yard offside at the time but later replays showed that he timed the run perfectly. Henry raced past a defender just outside the box, and looked to have pushed the ball too far forward. But he got there, deep on the left of goal, and although the outrushing Niemi got a touch on the shot he was unluckly to see it bounce through him and into the net.

Reyes was a bit anonymous to be frank, but we'll be giving him a fair chance here on Arseweb. He did have a shot near the end of the first half after a nice move involving first-touch chips from Vieira and then Pires. But the new boy dragged his ;eft foot shot wide of the far post.

Saints started the second half well and the Arsenal defence looked in some disarray. We wasted several chances to clear from one particular goalmouth scramble before Lehmann finally had to make a fine save from Ormerod.

15 minutes after the break Pires broke well and fed Henry on the left, whose cross across the face of goal just evaded Reyes.

Reyes had a superb moment after that - he's been doing a lot of chasing the pooposition defenders when they've got the ball deep in their half (nice to see such an attitude) and one time it came off as he robbed the ball then put it through for Henry. But after Thierry got the the goalline his cut-back was intercepted and they broke back at us, ending with a cross/shot from Ormerod on our right that just missed the far post - a very dangerous moment indeed.

Pires made a big headed clearance near his own goal as a chip from the right was heading for Ormerod's head at the far post (a situation created by good play by Phillips on the wing).

With 16 minutes to go, Clichy came on for Reyes and went to the left of midfield, with Pires moving central.

5 minutes later Strachan finally made the substitution, bringing off Baird (a midfielder who'd had to be rboguth on for Anders Svensson early on - lucky for us cos Svensson looked pretty good) and Le Saux for 2 attacking players: Pahars and Beattie. They looked more threatening for the change, and almost immediately Delap had a shot deflected narrowly wide for a corner.

In the last minute Henry nearly scored the goal of the season. From the left wing he first headed the ball over one defender, then chipped it over the next. But when he came to shoot past the approaching Niemi, from the left corner of the box, he opened his body a little too much and placed his right foot shot beyond the far post.

But we did get the second soon after, and Southampton will feel a bit unlucky and perhaps aggrieved about it (if the little ginger bloke jumping up and down and waving his arms on the touchline was anything to go by). Parlour had caught Higginbotham with his arm 10 yards into our half of the pitch, and Arsenal ignored (or perhaps weren't aware of) the Saints man being down on the ground as they broke up the other end. Henry was right there when the Parlour-Higginbotham incident happened. The ball ended up deep on our right, and cut back (by Pires?) towards Gilberto in the box. The Brazilian missed it and fell on his backside, from where he had a perfect view of Henry picking thr ball up outside the let corner of the box, transferring it to his right foot as he cut back inside his marker, and whacking it inside the far top corner. It's worth noting that Higginbotham did get up again and didn't look badly injured. It's far from clear that Arsenal had a responsibility to put the ball out, but their players were clearly a bit distracted (if onyl by their manager's antics on tetouchline) and I think it's fair to say that if Arsenal had been in their position we'd be feeling aggrieved about it.

So, much sympathy to Southampton from us. Not for the slightly lucky 2 goal win but for the news that Glenna Hoddle is being lined up as their new boss. Quite extraordinary after what happened before. They kept up the anti-Hoddle singing for most of the match so it's going to be very difficult for them if he does go back. Inciredible really that their chairman is even considering it. Maybe it's just a joke. It'll be interesting to see if we're all singing anti-Hoddle songs together still, the next time we meet.

5 points clear.