This was perhaps the most thrilling game seen at St Mary's in many a year with both sides chasing a victory right to the end.
Before the game most Saints supporters would have happily have gone home without a ball being kicked if both sides had agreed to call it a draw, by the end of it Saints supporters were thrilled, but also disappointed that all three points hadn't been gained.
The first half was mainly Saints, they played a high tempo game and kept the ball for long periods and looked good for the lead at half time with a towering Jose Fonte header from a pin point Luke Shaw cross giving them the lead on 20 minutes, however as has happened too often this season they almost threw that lead away on the stroke of half time, Artur Boruc having to make a great save from point blank range as the Saints defence lacked concentration to leave Laurent Koscielny with what appeared to be an easy chance.
But after the break Saints failed to learn the lessons of that lapse and within 7 minutes of the re start were behind, for a moment it looked like there would now be only one result, however within a couple of minutes Rodriguez had found Lallana in the area and he finished well to draw Saints level.
From then on it was cut and thrust from both sides and either could have won it, Ozil hit the bar after Boruc was left stranded by a cruel deflection that looped the ball over him and Saints had their moments at the other end.
With ten minutes to go Flamini was shown a straight red and that settled the crowds nerves as Arsenal were now truly on the back foot as Saints went in search of a winner, that nearly came in the final seconds of injury time, but Jack Cork just couldnt get the ball out from under his feet to get a clean shot away.
So all in all a good point and given the injury list and recent events it proved a point to those doubters who thought that Saints season would collapse, from this point of view a result was essential, Saints needed to show their home crowd that they were still the team that had got to 9th in the first place, beating Yeovil was a start but it wasnt the Premier League, but league leaders Arsenal is as tough as it gets and this showed the team spirit is still there, if Arsenal had routed us it would have started off those that thought our success was down to only one man and without him we would be stuffed, but this performance silenced that one and for all and whilst the fury raged around, Saints have quietly just got on with putting together a nice five game undefeated run, the three games in the league have gained 5 points plus two wins in the FA Cup giving us a nice platform to go into a run of four very winnable games which could see us start to get a bit nearer to Newcastle.
The plus points on the night for me were firstly the team performance it had a spirit about it that suggested that the squad itself was stronger than before, individually it was hard to pick out names, Callum Chambers for me was perhaps one of our best players, strong at the back and quick to get forward, whisper it quietly but he had a better game than Shaw last night, but we dont want too many knowing that.