Santi the Red decapitates Royals

Off to Reading after a football free weekend to watch an important game for both the Royals and their visitors from North London, with the home team having hit the bottom of the table and the Gunners reeling from their humiliating League Cup defeat at Bradford City.

Despite the fact that the two clubs have spent the majority of their history in different leagues the fixture has a rich history as detailed in the excellent match programme. It even has a place in popular culture as the scene of Nick Hornby's unmasking as fake Londoner when he attended the clubs' FA Cup tie at Elm Park in 1972. Currently though it is Brian McDermott who is the prime link between the two clubs, the programme featuring cuttings from the Arsenal programme when McDermott was still a Gunner. Although too kind to mention it, these cuttings came from the 1983-84 season when Arsenal last suffered a League Cup defeat to a team from the lower reaches of the Football League when Walsall won at Highbury. This bona fide shock led to the demise of manager Terry Neill and the lead up to last night's game was not shy of predicting a similar fate for both managers, though once again the programme was replete with statistics to argue against such a drastic option.

So plenty to ponder on the trip to that most loathsome of locations, the out of town football ground. With Reading station quickly reached, and plenty of help at hand to direct me to the waiting football special buses, a lengthy queue caused by the driver having to deal with cash was followed by a slow half an hour crawl through the rush hour traffic to Small Mead. Fortunately it was quite easy to locate my seat in the unofficial neutral section next to the Arsenal fans, which afforded me a magnificent view of a sold out ground which nevertheless seemed to have plenty of Emirates style paid for but empty seats.

Earlier in the season I had seen Reading do all but beat QPR at Loftus Road as the well organised Royals comfortably dealt with Rangers' attacks, yet this fortitude was mysteriously absent as the home team offered up an odd strategy of sitting back and allowing Mikel Arteta to bring the ball forward from deep in his own half. By the time a challenge arrived the mercurial Santi Cazorla had inevitably moved into a position which allowed him to cause havoc in the Reading defence all night. By the time Arsenal opened the scoring with a great finish by Lukas Podolski, the Spaniard was already giving the best live performance I had seen of his. With Kieran Gibbs also looking good on the left wing the stage seemed set for Theo Walcott to back up his claim that the central attacking role should be his, but he fluffed his lines on several occasions before scoring what proved to be the final goal of the game ten minutes from the end.

In between Arsenal seemed to have won the game before allowing Reading some late hope. Cazorla embodied the Gunners domination for the best part of the game by scoring a hat trick even show boating in the penalty area early in the second half. 

Just in case anyone had forgotten Arsenal's defensive malaise this season, they conceded two quick goals to halve the lead and hint at a repeat of the epic league cup tie here at the end of October. There was no danger of lightning striking twice though and the game ended comfortably enough for Arsenal no matter how frustrating it is that the clean sheet is fast becoming an anachronism in the Premier League.

Reading Buses were on top form to get me back to the station in time for the early train home after a match which was enjoyable in isolation and changed little long term. In a poor Premier League, Arsenal can go third if they win their Saturday lunchtime match at Wigan, but the background noise about Wenger's future will remain for the foreseeable future. In contrast Reading will travel to Eastlands at the weekend with little hope never mind expectation, but surely they must see the long term value in McDermott's management and back him to use what will almost certainly be a budget boosted by a parachute payment next season to build a stronger squad better able to sustain a Premier League place should promotion be won once more.

Gervais of the Arsenal

After an exclusively non league season so far it felt strange to be heading up the Piccadilly Line to Arsenal and the heady world of the Premier League. A strange journey it seemed too for the Southampton fans in my carriage who were worried whether the train would be stopping at all stations and so missing the stop at Gillespie Road. Leaving the train I walked up the tunnel behind a Soccer! couple who enlightened me with the following conversation:

Woman: I don't actually know who we're playing today
Man: Neither do I, I don't know any of the players either

Emerging into the fresh air I saw the old adage about fools and money proved again as I followed a man in his 50s wearing a purple away shirt with Podolski 9 on the back. Grow up man! The rules of football merchandise are quite easy: adults should never wear replica kit unless actually engaged in sporting activity.  A scarf and woolly hat is permissible providing the temperature has fallen beneath 10 degrees celsius. Otherwise you run the risk of featuring in the hottest timeline on Twitter at the moment.

Most puzzling of all was the person sitting on my left wearing one of those split friendship scarves showing the colours of both teams. Rules are a bit different here: souvenirs scarves are permissible at a Cup Final with  details of the match but only the colours of one team.

Anyway onto the football and for the second Saturday in a row I saw a goal fest. Having lost in two winnable situations late on against Manchesters City and United, Southampton looked a bit more circumspect going forward but this only served to heap more pressure on their frail defence and it was no surprise when Arsenal took the lead, Lukas Podolski powering through the midfield having initially appeared to have lost the ball before laying a pass left to Kieran Gibbs whose return was bundled over the line by Jos Hooiveld. Podolski soon doubled the lead with the goal of the game, a free kick bent round the wrong side of the wall which left Kelvin Davis grasping thin air. With the Saints in disarray Gervinho collected Mikel Arteta's pass to charge at goal down the right wing beating the hapless Davis inside his near post. Gibbs then completed an usual double when another cross was diverted into the net for an own goal, this time by Nathaniel Clyne. At this stage I was seriously contemplating another 8-0 win but as half time approached Wojciech Szczesny decided to join in the fashion for defensive lapses by dropping a cross at the feet of Daniel Fox who fired the ball into the empty net.

This sparked something of a Southampton revival after the break but normal service was resumed with nineteen minutes to go when a superb piece of play by substitute Aaron Ramsey saw the Welshman turn his man and hare towards the byline where he squared the ball for Gervinho to add his second. The Ivorian departed soon after following the best performance I had seen from him in an Arsenal shirt. If you added his consistent wing play to Theo Walcott's pace you really would have a player. The programme revealed that Gervinho's real name is actually Gervais. I wish he would revert to it. It seems a suitable nod to the making of the Gunners in the 30s by Herbert Chapman.

Walcott himself scored the final goal picking up the loose ball after Thomas Vermaelen's shot was blocked. Speaking of the Belgian, it was impossible to see if he was wearing his captain's armband due to the blue band on the new Arsenal strip making it appear as if the entire team had entered into the kind of democratic Socratic experiment which the late bearded Brazilian embarked on at Corinthians in the early 80s.

The Southampton supporters reacted with little grace to their thrashing and it was a pity that Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's last minute shot went narrowly past the wrong side of the post having been booed by some of the away fans throughout. Instead the Ox and Walcott showed real class at the end of the game by going over to applaud the followers of the club which gave them such a great foundation to their career.

Overall a good run out for Arsenal in a match trickily wedged between an international week and the first Champions League game. Aside from Gervais' performance the highlight was Per Mertesacker, so classy at the back and a real threat with his head from corners. Furthermore it was a million miles away from the last time I saw this fixture, a frustrating 1-0 win for Southampton at Highbury in a game where a young Niall Quinn faced the embarrassment of being substituted after he himself had come off the bench.