Good afternoon and welcome to our LIVE coverage of Arsenal's match against Southampton at The Emirates.

Mauricio Pochettino has done everything he can to play down the importance of today's game against the leaders: "Even if we won at Arsenal, nothing would change in the way we work. We would believe in what we have believed in so far. We have been tested already. Arsenal and Chelsea won’t be any different for us from that."

Arsene Wenger insists that today's visitors could be genuine title contenders: "You cannot rule anybody out. If they can keep the defensive record they have then they can be very ambitious. All the teams want to press and to win the ball back quickly - there's nothing special in there, but they do it well and that is why they are efficient defensively."

Walcott only on the bench against his old club for Arsenal today - as is Nicklas Bendtner, who said during the week that he's expecting a move to Barcelona or Real Madrid fairly soon.

TEAMS: Arsenal - Szczesny, Sagna, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gibbs, Arteta, Ramsey, Wilshere, Ozil, Cazorla, Giroud. Subs: Fabianski, Vermaelen, Monreal, Rosicky, Walcott, Gnabry, Bendtner. //// Southampton: Boruc, Clyne, Fonte, Hooiveld, Shaw, Wanyama, Schneiderlin, Ward-Prowse, Lallana (c), Rodriguez, Lambert. Subs: Gazzaniga (GK), Yoshida, S. Davis, Osvaldo, Chambers, Reed, Gallagher.