Arsenal v Southampton Player Ratings – Koscielny Phenomenal!

Arsenal 1 – 0 Southampton Player Ratings by KJ

Martinez – 6
Another solid performance. He had no real saves to make and that’s why he isn’t getting a higher score but he was commanding throughout the game.

Chambers – 7
Another fairly solid defensive performance. Was pretty good offensively but lacked the option from Chamberlain at times.

Mertesacker – 7
It was a more solid performance which built on his game against West Brom. He was commanding.

Koscielny – 8 (MOTM)
He was cleaning up any attempts by Southampton to get attempts at our goal. He is just a phenomenal defender.

Monreal – 7
He defender properly and combined well with the attackers. Just had a solid game overall like the rest of the defenders.

Flamini – 6.5
He made good tackles and interceptions and his passing was decent. He did almost cost us an own goal but fortunately Martinez had everything under control.

Ramsey – 6.5
He was poor for the majority of the game but he eventually made the difference in the final minutes which is the most important thing.

Oxlade-Chamberlain – 5.5
Didn’t really do much. He looked good on the ball but doesn’t seem to take up the right positions to receive it.

Cazorla – 7
He was our best midfielder today and did a lot of things really well. He seems to finally be hitting some consistency with his performances which is a massive plus.

Alexis – 7.5
He once again won us the game with his goal. He was quality for large portions of the game and his influence on the team is really telling.

Welbeck – 6
Wasn’t really impressed with him. He doesn’t take the responsibility like a striker should. He doesn’t take shots when they are there for him to take. He needs to become more ruthless.

Subs:
Giroud – 7.5
He came on and changed the game massively. His one touch play sped up our football and created numerous chances. It is good to have him back.

Podolski – 5.5
He came on and made a few decent dribbles across the pitch and had a shot saved.

Kash

Tags Alexis Giroud Martinez

44 Comments

    1. Imagine if we had another CB beast to partner Kos. He is just making Mert look better when he plays. But with another pacy CB as good as Kos we would be really dificult to break down…

      1. Jeff. Don’t know how you got two thumbs down. Agree about Kos making Sack look he is actually able to play football. Kos is the ultimate team player so he compromises his own game to protect the slow German. Is this fair, will his tendons hold out, does Wenger care?

        1. Kos complement Mert well and make him look good, cover his weakness in pace. But you will see a different Kos once Mert got injured. Kos is a top top defender but no where complete. His lacks of height and strength are well documented. Just look at the number of ariel clearance and interception Mert made then you will understand how important Mert is.
          If we want to replace him, we need someone in the mould of Kompany. Hopefully we already have a ready made one in Calum Chambers

      2. thats just stupid! don’t you guys remember when vermaelen and koscielny played together? i will not exactly call that difficult to break down. you guys can say what you want but they were quite similar in style of play. both are aggressive sometimes risky, rely on pace and strength not able to organize a defense. thats why mertesacker is important for arsenal. because he can organize the defense, and are not rushing forward to make a tackle but is in contrast more awaiting. that makes a good balance in defense and good partnership between koscienly and mertesacker. I’m not saying that koscielny is a bad defender clearly he is not in fact he is world class but just need someone who got the skills like mertesacker although i think we could find a player who has the same skill set, more pace and who is just better than mertesacker.

      1. Wanyama is a good addition when we need someone to replace Flamini, he can play the role of what Mikel is doing at Chelsea
        We need our own Matic and Yaya Toure to challenge for titles, the minimum we need is Scheiderlein

  1. Im not sure if its the new competition up front or the hunger from being out for so long but Giroud is looking like a top top top striker

    1. the guy has improved, plus now we have our CR7 in AS17 who is delivering for us, so Giroud will be more important as he can hold up the ball and create for AS17 to take. in fact the whole team is improving. Poldi deserves some f#%king game time. #COYG

      1. Seem like many of us have short memory. Giroud had been great in the beginning of last season. Fatigue due to many games make him jaded, and faded out at the end of the campaign, he also does not have any speedy players to combine with him after Walcott out. This season he is fresh, and due to his limitation in pace and dribbling, having players like Sanchez, Welbeck, Ox, Walcott will complement him well. He can also bring in things that others lack such as strength, ariel threat and hold up play.

  2. We performing better when Kosc and Giroud are in the team. Defense is looking better with Kosc is in the team. Giroud also bond well with the team. Cazorla is playing well at no 10. The issue for me is Ramsey.. We now need him like last season Ramsey.
    Man city beat this team 3-0 at southamton.
    Hence we are not yet at City at chelsea level. We need more ruthlessness .
    We need to score more goals to get our confidence back. We need our midfielders to score more goals. Can not remember last time when our midfielders score

  3. We have played 3 games now without Schezny in our posts and we have kept clean sheet in all of them!

    1. @eloaking, great observation, i think this kid martinez deserves to keep his place, even him (szzn) snatch the glove while others where injured.

  4. koscielny make mertesacker looks very decent, and our defense very solid and relieble. can you imagine if kosielny is partening players like hummels?? get him asap arsene.

  5. Well I hav always rated giroud. But what baffles me is welbeck goal ratio. Last season people where saying giroud only scores against lower team but let me tell you if welbeeck had put the chances he gets against those lower teams we would be right up there. Again it will only take a ramsey injury for wenger to give rosicky a game time.wtf wenger. And martinez well the less I say the better. Even the commentator said he is full of composure and confidence. Look at his distribution something szcscney hvent have for 3 seasons if am counting. Tnk u boss even though u have injury u are still prefered to monreal at cb. To be honest sanchez was bad today but I think he is tired because I can’t remember any game he has played for us without. Running to defend and run back to counter again. And tnk him for the goal. But it came because of giroud his physicality won us that game. And tnk u marriner for not giving a penalty because I am not sure we gonna score it. All I will take 1- 0 for the next 20 game over 3-0 and then draw 2-2 and then loose 3-2. Arsenal are defending as a unit I can’t remember southampton having a clear cut chance today. COYG

    1. Yes they did create a good chance just beginning of the game. They break our defence, if pelle didn’t miss kick that will be a goal.

  6. In my opinion Welbeck and Ox should work on their endproduct. At times it seems as if their afraid to shoot. I think Ox has the quality to become Worldclass, its just the final ball thats lacking. If he works on that we could have a second Sanchez in our team and with Theo back we could become unplayable for most defenses.
    As for Welbeck he does most things right and often gets hinself in the right possition but his finishing is not at the riquired level at the moment. Thats why Poldi should get more game time (even if its a half an our but not just ten mins) because although he might offer us less in our all round play he is one of the few players that can finish.

    I just hope that Thierry comes back in january and teaches those boys how to finish. I want our free scoring Arsenal back!

  7. Soton play well, if not of injuries make them down to 10 man, I think the result will be 0-0. They are very organised, suddenly down to 10 man with 6 mins left they panic and fumble and we take our chance.

    A plus point is the sub of Giroud on 65 mins did make different. Ox seen not happy being sub.

  8. Seen like Joel won’t be having any play time soon. If he didn’t show in FA cup then I think for his good sake, he has to think about his future. He is not a sub quality, Wenger. Free him.

    1. You should not feel sorry for rosicky, campbell, and lukas. They blew their chance of regular football by having the team knocked out in the third round of the capital one cup. The kids in defence did exceptionally well but were let down by the senior trio.

  9. Alexis had his worst game in an Arsenal shirt IMO. Like others have said, he was simply at the right place at the right time to get the goal. I’ll give him 2 less points than KJ gave him. I’m really worried about his ball retention and passing. We get ourselves into so many difficult situations because he tries to dribble rather than pass safely to a team mate or even blast it into the crowd if necessary. I’m sure it’s something that can be fixed in training.

  10. Yes lets not forget that we scored when they had 10 men on the field. But, as Wenger would say, we deserved to win because we made the most chances…

    With that said, Giroud’s looping header was as good as a goal, just a crazy save!

  11. We can see sanchez is getting tired, he start to feel the strain and first time he will be without winter break. I can feel he is not so comfortable with the cold weather in London so if we still has to depend on him during Christmas and new year game than we are in deep shi*. Let hope someone suddenly get his form up and help the team.

  12. Just a protest for ticket price and liverpool has fix a date to meet with her fans so they can dialogue over it but in Arsenal we only protest in words…..sorry to say Arsenal fans got no balls

  13. How good was Fraser Foster, he was an amazing Goalkeeper, the saves he made were amazing. If it was not for him we would be 3-4 goals up.

  14. Didn’t watch the game but good three points from the boys.

    From what am hearing it seems OG is proving what most of us have been saying that his very good off the bench or atleast played with a partner. We need more goals from our midfielders too we cant just depend on our strikers, Carzola, Rambo, Ox if playing, hell even Flamini/Arteta should also chip in like last season. Our goals have dried up.

    Good we got another clean sheet, wonder what’s going through Scz’s head watching these games.

    The fixture looks massively loaded I feel for the players though its great for us as we get to see more of our team. Effective rotation here would be key. In the next game I would rest Sanchez for the 1st 45mins atleast and start with Welbeck, OG, OX upfront. He needs a rest too guys plus CL is coming up.

    But what do I know, I don’t get 8m to think about such!!!

    1. We do. If Ozil was playing in the middle he would have a lot of players to feed. Plus unlike all the Brits and Sanchez… he doesn’t hold onto the ball too long and lose it.

  15. Imagine if we had another CB like Koscielny.
    imagine if we had a top DM
    IMagine if we had a top striker like Aguero, Costa, RVP.

    Well stop imagining. January is approaching and our great reliable leader will make our Christmas dreams come true.

    1. Imagine we have the best football fan in the world, who support the team whatever happen on the pitch
      Imagine Emirate Stadium with 60 thousands strong on the stand (double of most stadiums) will become a fortress where every team fear to visit.
      Not only our team need to be fixed, our fan need to be fixed too. Boo when manager made the correct substitution, so classless

  16. First of all, we have 2 world class player in the group right now (not counting the injured Ozil): Koscielny (not even 100% fit) and Sanchez… THAT IS IT…!!

    Mertesacker 7… Really… No comment because it is laughable .
    Welbeck, well, not great, like most of the time except when we play really weak team…
    Ramsey seemed to have lost his confidence…!!

    We won because Giroud came in and Southampton were down to10 men. Other than that nothing was happening…

    I won’t mind seeing Martinez keeping his place instead of Szczęsny…!!

    1. Why are you so negative? World class is subjective and other teams are always winning because something happened to the other team like injuries, red cards, wrong decisions etc

  17. The drivel that some of you so-called supporters send to this website is amazing. BFG and LK form the best CB combination that we have seen at Arsenal for many a year and complement each other perfectly. But our problem is not the defence, it is the lack of GOALS, GOALS, GOALS!!! There’s far too much pussyfooting around the opposing goal area, when a more direct approach is needed. Unfortunately we do not have the players for such a direct approach, and those that do, like AO-C, get substituted instead of Ramsey last night as an example, who was not contributing anything at all. Just think of the goals that have been scored by Chelsea, MCity these last few games. How many of them were from crosses coming in from out wide? When the midfield trio of Cazorla/Wilshere/Ramsey have the ball at the edge of the opposing penalty area, you can be sure it’s going to end up back at one of our CB’s and be played out wide for aimless crosses with nobody there except the opposing goalkeeper. Someone asked whether ‘we are missing Özil?’ Of course we are, but only if he is played where he should be, and that’s at no10. He’s better than Ramsey and Wilshere will ever be.

    1. Running around with no direction into defenders is not playing well. Playing well is reading the game well, hold the ball , release or shoot where necessary. With all due respect AOC Chamberlain is not improving at all since he joined Arsenal. He has so much power , pace and dribbling skills but no end product! Ramsey wasn’t visible but look at how important was his measured cut back?

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