Half-arsed Arsenal take lead from Arsene Wenger on dress-down Wednesday

Arsene Wenger is rarely seen without a sharply-tailored suit and tie hanging from his gangly frame so when he appears on the touchline looking like a man who has just nipped out to Londis before it closes to get some milk for next morning's breakfast it surely says something about the importance he is attributing to the occasion.

Perhaps, then, it was no surprise that Arsenal adopted a similarly casual, even slovenly, attitude to an EFL Cup quarter-final that they deservedly lost 2-0 to Southampton, with Wenger watching on in grey tracksuit bottoms and bulky white trainers. The manager staged his own dress-down Wednesday but it just transmitted all the wrong signals as Arsenal effectively failed to turn up for work.

The League Cup has never been a competition which Wenger has treated with reverence. It has been used effectively as a training slope for some of his bright young upstarts, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie the best of the many prospects who have had a grounding in the competition, and Wenger has lost two finals, to Chelsea and Birmingham, but after two decades he doesn't look any closer to really taking it seriously.

Smart-casual? Arsenal were decidedly more of the latter than the former, particularly in a woefully insipid first half as they conceded twice and barely looked like they had any interest in contesting the game on a freezing November night in North London. A smattering of boos at half-time and full-time told their own story as Arsenal failed to make it 20 games unbeaten in all competitions.



"We had a disappointing performance, especially in the first half," said Wenger. "We gave ourselves a mountain to climb. We were not good enough defensively and gave cheap goals away in the first half. In the second half it was better but it was one of these nights where we looked like we could play for two hours without scoring a goal. We didn't have enough urgency in the first half, we were weak in some departments and we paid for that."

There was a distinct lack of urgency for the first goal as Ryan Bertrand danced into acres of space in Arsenal's right-back position, supposedly filled by Carl Jenkinson, and Jordy Clasie belted the ball past Emiliano Martinez. Bertrand then slotted the second away, profiting from some more careless defending, Jenkinson giving away possession in a dangerous area.



If nothing else, this match will dissuade Wenger of the notion that Jenkinson is of any value. He is recovering from long-term injury but looked well below the required standard against Southampton. Youngster Ainsley Maitland-Niles was an improvement but with Jeff Reine-Adelaide only showing flashes of talent there was no big youth breakthrough to redeem this as an occasion. No emergent promise to disguise the sting of defeat.

One positive was the performance of Gabriel Paulista, though. It was an emotional night for the Brazilian centre-back even before the match kicked off as he held up a 'Forca Chape' banner paying tribute to the tragic Chapecoense side after the plane crash which claimed 71 lives this week. His tears were borne of personal as well as public grief: the defender played under manager Caio Junior, one of the dead, at Vitoria in 2013.

Finding inspiration elsewhere on a night which otherwise lacked it, Gabriel enjoyed one of his better performances for Arsenal. He attacked the ball with confidence, brought it out from the back with style and made six interceptions. True, he was fortunate that Shane Long shot woefully wide after rolling the Brazilian in the second half, but an equally abiding memory was his 30-yard sprint across the turf to deftly flick the ball off the toe of an opponent in the first half. So too a shimmy to lose his marker under pressure. 

Alex Iwobi was the only other player to ascend above mediocrity as he brought intermittent sizzle to the Arsenal attack but this was unmistakably a performance lacking in all departments and considerations. In short, it was a half-arsed display from a team who looked like they barely cared and a manager who emitted the same sentiment.