AS HIS best footballing friend lay in a hospital bed, Arsene Wenger's sympathies went out to him.

"It just shows this job can damage your health," said the Arsenal boss.

Not if you're the Arsenal manager playing against Saints, it doesn't.

The only way Wenger's health could have been under threat was if he had broken out in a nasty rash induced by embarrassment.

To add to Disraeli's statement that there are lies, damned lies and statistics, you can add scorelines.

Because if ever a scoreline didn't reflect a match it was this.

Arsenal weren't just streets ahead of Saints, they weren't even in the same neighbourhood. To dub this as men against boys would be an insult to boys.

Rarely has a Saints side been run so ragged, and been totally outdistanced in every department on their own patch as they were by a Gunners outfit that oozed class and confidence through every pore.

Forget St Mary's jinxes. It would have made no difference had this been played at The Dell, or on the Veracity Ground. Arsenal just had too much in their locker for Saints who trooped off to a storm of boos.

Those boos were as well-directed as an arrow from Robin Hood's bow, and were aimed at chairman Rupert Lowe.

For all Saints shortcomings on the pitch - and there were plenty - the roots of this crushing defeat were sown at least three weeks ago, the day Dean Richards departed.

Fans aren't dumb. They're more sophisticated these days and they made their feelings known at the inability, reluctance, failure - call it what you will - to either have a replacement lined up, or to get somebody in.

They weren't fooled by the 3-1 win at Middlesbrough and two weeks had gone by since that day with no movement in the transfer market.

Even BEFORE Richards' departure Saints knew their central defensive cover was Rizla-thin. Since then they have been busking it as they go along.

On Saturday all the chickens scuttled home to the roost at once and the feathers flew like a fight a pillow factory.

The difference was there for all to see as Arsenal were able to seemingly shrug aside the absence of Tony Adams and the suspended Martin Keown by sliding Matthew Upson alongside Sol Campbell.

When he wasn't getting a sniff earlier in the season Upson was one of those linked with Saints. How Saints would have liked him in their defence on Saturday, but with Wenger now hailing him as the next generation when Adams and Keown hang their boots up, there's little chance of anyone prising him away from Highbury.

At full strength and on a good day Saints would have struggled to beat Arsenal. Saturday was the equivalent of sending somebody out to fend a pack of starving wolves off a flock of sheep with a rolled-up Exchange & Mart.

It's was no way to face Patrick Vieira who didn't just boss the game, he owned it as he took advantage of Saints' defensive dilemma.

If you try and hold a high line against Arsenal, you risk Thierry Henry and Sylvain Wiltord getting in behind with their pace.

Drop off, and Arsenal have players like the scurrying Freddie Ljungberg and the languidly smooth Robert Pires to wreak havoc in the spaces.

At the heart of it all was Vieira. It's not enough that he has enough energy to power all the lights in a small town for a week, he also has the technique to complement it.

Saints just couldn't handle him and it was sheer frustration as much as anything that prompted Chris Marsden's rash and ugly lunge which saw him shown a second yellow.

It's Vieira's range and accuracy of passing that underpins Arsenal's movement off the ball. Giovanni van Bronkhorst and Ljungberg were able to spring forward and make 60-yard runs, confident in the knowledge they would be seen and the ball delivered. Arsenal had players in positions they had no right to be in as though they had sprung from trapdoors, and Saints couldn't cope.

It didn't help they gifted Arsenal an opener five minutes in, when Claus Lundekvam got caught ball-carrying in heavy traffic and van Bronkhorst nicked the ball off him. Even when Wiltord mis-controlled, Pires was in like Flynn to curl the ball around Paul Jones.

That Arsenal weren't out of sight by half-time was down to Henry who contrived the miss of the season. He side-footed wide of an empty goal seven yards out after Wiltord's shot cannoned back off the post, and if the French striker had been half-interested, Arsenal would have been five up by the break.

He flickered into to life after the break with a shot which took a wicked deflection off Stuart Ripley to leave Jones wrong-footed, but Arsenal played the second-half at training ground pace.

For Saints' fans, it was painful, and the only reason most of them hadn't left was because they wanted to make their feelings known at the final whistle.

At least they saw Saints' only worthwhile effort on goal when James Beattie landed an 88th minute header on the roof of the unemployed Richard Wright's net.