Southampton 0-5 Arsenal: Twitter Reacts As Gunners Run Riot At St Mary's To Advance In FA Cup 1

Riding on Theo Walcott’s hat-trick and Danny Welbeck’s brace, a rampant Arsenal side thrashed Southampton by 5-0  to reach the FA Cup fifth round.

Both teams made 10 changes each but the Gunners showed their class by thoroughly dominating the fixture. Making his first start since May 2016, Welbeck fired the visitors to the lead in the 14th minute with a brilliant finish before doubling his and Arsenal’s goal tally seven minutes later.

The home team, which had reached the EFL Cup final earlier this week, threatened to open the scoring but Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg fired over while Anfield hero Shane Long was denied by a fine David Ospina save. Theo Walcott then put the game beyond the Saints’ reach by scoring 10 minutes from half-time.

With his team looking out of sorts, Claude Puel introduced Nathan Redmond and Dusan Tadic after the break but it was of little help as Arsene Wenger’s men had the game under control throughout. Walcott hit his second and Arsenal’s fourth in the 69th minute when Alexis Sanchez pulled the ball back to provide Walcott with an easy chance to finish. The Chile international and England international combined once again in the 84th minute when Sanchez turned back inside before squaring for Walcott to net his hat-trick.

Meanwhile, Arsene Wenger will be quite pleased to see the way his team performed without him being in the dugout. The Arsenal boss was serving the first game in a four-match touchline suspension imposed by the Football Association.

Here is how Twitter reacted to the match:

https://twitter.com/WelBeast/status/825422322920218624

https://twitter.com/WengerTactic/status/825419031503060994