When the line up was announced someone commented that Mauricio Pellegrino appeared to have picked the names out of a hat, but the gamble almost paid off, but didn't due to our failure to make changes in the final quarter of the match.
There was big surprises pre match when the team line up was announced, in came Stephens and Yoshida and out went Hoedt, perhaps dropping Pied after one game was not so much of a shock, but Hoedt, that error against Bournemouth aside has arguably been our best defender in the past few weeks.
Likewise the fact that Mario Lemina was also not in the starting line up also raised eyebrows, but what perhaps cost us all three points was not the fact that neither started the game, but that neither finished it and remained firmly on the bench for the entire 90 minutes especially Lemina !
Perhaps Mauricio Pellegrino felt that he needed to rest a few legs with three games coming up in only six days and a packed Xmas programme looming.
But the names in the starting line up changed, but the spirit didn't and the game could not have started better when Dusan Tadic played a sublime short ball for Charlie Austin to run onto and blast past Cech.
For 10 minutes Saints threatend to get a second but the offside flag and some stout rear guard action from Arsenal kept them out and the game soon fell into a pattern that it would maintain for the rest of the 90 minutes, that was of Saints getting behind the ball and going on the break, something which they continued to do till the final whistle.
This worked very well with every man on the pitch putting in a great performance and workrate to make sure that Arsenal despite their pressure actually created very little, althouh Fraser Forster had to pull off a magnificent save in the first half to keep his side level.
The second half started as the the first had ended, but as the half went on it was clear that Saints were tiring, they had run themselves into the ground and for the final half hour James Ward Prowse was virtually a right back with Jack Stephens being pulled across the middle and a hole needing to be plugged.
With 20 minutes left fresh legs were needed, Charlie Austin, not usually the man with the highest workrate had run himself to exhaustion, he has admitted himself that he struggled to get past this mark and this was a game where he had had to work harder than most of them.
At this time our attacks were confined to break aways and we had several, problem was that Charlie Austin was never going to outstrip the Arsenal defence from the half way line and that meant that a couple of promising situations did not bear fruit, no blame attached to the Saints striker he was just knackered to coin a phrase.
So the manager waiting till the 76th minute before making his frst change was strange, stranger was that as everyone prepared to rise to give Charlie Austin a standing ovation for his contribution, it was not his number that came up on the board but Nathan Redmond in what was basically a straight swap for Sofiane Boufal.
From then on Saints were pushed back and the sight of Mario Lemina warming up was heartening, he was just the man that was needed to get in amongst the Arsenal midfield and offer fresh legs as well as the ability to win the ball and use it.
But Lemina would continue to run up and down the touchline and Austin would not be removed to the 86th minute despite being a virtual passenger for the previous 10 minutes, he put in the work rate right up till he went off, but his tired legs needed replacing and for that matter Dusan Tadic had also run himself into the ground as well.
Tired legs make tired minds and tired minds make the wrong decisions and the failure of the manager to be pro active instead of reactive would cost us dearly, as the game entered its final minutes too many fouls were being given away, too many balls wasted, we were out on our feet with only the adrenalin keeping us going and we paid the price for that.
With Steven Davis stripped off and ready to come on Arsenal equalised, Giroud got in between Yoshida and Van Dijk to head home, i'm not going to apportion blame, but tired minds lack concentration and that cost us, before people see this as a dig at Yoshida for the record I thought that he had an excellent game, as did Jack Stephens.
So Davis first involvement was as Saints kicked off from the restart, in my opinion Mauricio Pellegrino had gambled and sat on his hands when it came to the changes needed and had lost, of course football is never a certain game, but if Davis or Lemina had come on five or ten minutes earlier then it would have given us a little more fizz in the centre of the midfield, it would have given us those fresh legs needed and that might just have meant that we held out, certainly Arsenal rarely threatened to score despite 70% possession in the second half and only slightly less in the first.
So I just cannot understand why Pellegrino dropped Hoedt and to a lesser extent Pied, this is no slur on either Yoshida or Stephens both of who put in great performances, only that dropping Hoedt makes no sense, we paid a lot of money for him, he has rarely put a foot wrong, yet he seems to be in and out of the team, this looked a game where we needed his pace, his ability to carry the ball and to pass it, I just cannot find any logic in the changes.
But more importantly it wasn't the team selection that cost us, but the failure to be pro active, to make the right substitutions at the right time, Arsene Wenger did so and got a point he should not have got, Mauricio Pellegrino seemed unable to see that at least two player were out on their feet for the final fifteen minutes and seemed content to hope that Saints could hold firm rather than to change things to improve their chances of doing so.
We should have seen Austin off after 70 minutes with Lemina on, perhaps pushing Nathan Redmond in a forward role to go on the break and chase down the Arsenal back four, instead they were allowed to build from the back and we waited for them virtually our own penalty box line.
We should have seen Gabbiadini on with at least ten minutes to go, this was his sort of game latching on to through balls, and I personally would have considered bringing on Hoedt, we were playing a virtual back five at this point, but Giroud as was shown was always going to offer an aerial threat, I would not have taken off Stephens of Yoshida for Hoedt, just rejigged the back four.
This felt like a defeat, but to end on a good note, this was a spirited perfromance where team selection aside no one has any right to point the finger at any player out there, they all gave great performances and their all, it was a great game to watch, no one can moan about not being entertained, the team spirit was there for all to see, the players earned this result, but it was one of those games where it is the manager that wns you the game through tactics, there were no tactics involved in this game, Saints just had to dig in and defend, when they looked to the manager he did nothing.