‘Prime Pirlo’, ‘was wrong about him’: Some Arsenal fans in awe of £30m man’s display yesterday

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Arsenal finally returned to winning ways on Thursday evening following a shaky return to Premier League action, Mikel Arteta’s Gunners running out 2-0 winners at Southampton.

The Emirates Stadium side was left reeling after defeats to Manchester City and Brighton, but it was a case of third time lucky as they left St Mary’s with all three points.

Arsenal had to dig deep on the south coast as Eddie Nketiah opened the scoring on 20 minutes, making the most of Alex McCarthy’s error to slot the ball into the empty net.

The Saints went a man down on 85 minutes as Jack Stephens was shown a red card for bringing down Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as the last man.

From the resulting free kick, Joe Willock grabbed the crucial second after Alexandre Lacazette’s free kick struck the Southampton wall and the follow-up was parried.

Granit Xhaka made his return to the Arsenal starting XI following his swift return from injury and the Gunners midfield was much stronger with him back.

The £30million man made some great long-range passes and travelled well with the ball, the midfield’s movement and control much improved from last time out.

Plenty of Arsenal fans noted how much better the team plays with Xhaka in the XI and praised him on Twitter: