This was another of those days when an hour before the kick off when the line up came out, you knew it was going to be a long long day, complain all you want about poor team selections or tactics but such is the polarisation of the Premier League it is all about those who have money and those who haven't.

When the team came out it brought home the gravity of the situation, all good teams have a strong spine and ours had been decimated with both experienced goalkeepers injured, Salisu & Romeu suspended and Che Adams injured, the latter three all crucial players this season.

In came 40 year old Willy Caballero a bench warmer for the last 7 years and not having played a competitive game in over a year, back came Jack Stephens and Ibrahima Diallo it was always going to be tough.

But for the first 20 minutes it was an even contest and you just had thoughts that we might just get something, but then came a 16 pass move that carved us open and you knew it would be a long day, but we still kept battling and Adam Armstrong had caused the home defence problems even before they had scored, but again on 27 minutes we got caught asleep and Odegaard headed in from close range with Bednarek and Odegaard stood watching, the Polish defender made it quite clear whose man it was.

The rest of the half was goalless and the concourse screens at half time showed that we had had more attempts both on and off target, yet we were still two goals down.

The second half was about battling and riding our luck a little, as the hour mark went by there was still hope that we might get a goal back, but those hopes were extinguished when Gabriel rose like an angel above his markers and Caballero came and didn't get there for a ball that was never his and we were 3-0 down.

The last 30 minutes were all about survival and although we rode our luck a lot we got through the final third of the game unscathed.

The real irony is that we had more attempts on target than the home side, 6 to their 5, yet 3 of those went it, what cost us the game was poor marking and a failure to be first to the ball and you can't blame the manager for that.

There has been a lot of ranting and raving again about Ralph Hasenhuttl after this result, but we were missing four players from the side who faced Brighton, three of them perhaps our best players this season, Arsenal were able to bring on a sub Pepe a player who cost them £72 million, more than our entire starting line up and that tells us something about the task that Ralph Hasenhuttl has at present.

He is at the club not to steer us into the top 6, but to keep us steady and still in the premier League whilst we go through a difficult time financially where the owner is unable to put in money and we are hampered by having to pay high wages to players who are not really contributing much.

We have to ask ourselves just who we would get better to replace him, perhaps Claude Puel, after all he took us to 8th and a League cup final 5 years ago, yet that wasn't good enough then, I'm sure we would all take it now.

This is why I don't rant and rave at defeats such as this, Ralph Hasenhuttl is there to do a job and he has a lot less resources than most of the other 19 Premier League managers, he is not doing the job on an even playing field, yet some judge him on that.

He has kept us in the premier league and indeed taken us to an FA Cup semi final and has done so with a passion for the club that has been lacking in every manager before him since Nigel Adkins , it is a sad day that some cannot judge him on the task he has to do and not one that at this time he doesn't have the resources.

But on Saturday he was down to the bare bones in terms of experience, he had lost the spine of his team, yet despite the scoreline we still competed, we never lost the fighting spirit, we kept trying to get back in the game and indeed could have up until the hour mark.

With Oriel Romeu Che Adams and Salisu in the side on Saturday we might well have given them a much closer game, certainly we missed them greatly.

I'm not worried about losing to Arsenal a side who have spent a lot of money and are in the top 6 and rising, i'm more worried about travelling to Crystal Palace on Wednesday, Adam Armstrong and Broja both limped off at the Emirates, will they be fit for the trip to Selhurst Park and indeed will Che Adams be back, that is something to worry about, yet I suspect that the Ralph Out brigade will not take that into account.

Photo: Action Images

deanosfc8 added 16:53 - Dec 13 Ralph was asked 2 things when he took the Job on... 1.. Balance the books. 2.. Keep us in the premier League. When I last looked he was by some Miracle doing both. If you want entertainment then I'm sure Chelsea would welcome you with all the other village idiots.
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YosemiteSaint added 16:58 - Dec 13 Two quick points, both of which I've said before: 1. This past summer we needed to address our goalkeeping situation. We did not. 2. Hasenhüttl's easy to like, and so is his brand of football (when it's working, which it's really only done for one of the three years he's led us). But his tactical nous is poor, and his insistence on "heavy metal football" throughout matches means players are going to tire and get injured. (It's really no wonder that we've lost 71 points from winning positions, and that our injury list is so long.) For me, it means the negatives outweigh the positives. OK, one more: 3. Claude's available! ( https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/19764996.former-saints-boss-claude-puel-sacked

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