An excellent day all round for Arsenal as they finally found their scoring boots and Walcott, Giroud and Sanchez all getting on the scoresheet and doubling our tally for the season to 10. There were many top-class performers yesterday but I don’t really expect you to guess who was MOTM as Alexis Sanchez was sublime and has now scored hat-tricks in Serie A, La Liga, the Premier League and in the Copa Libertadores (The South American Champions League) for Colo-Colo.
Player Ratings
Petr Cech – 8
Couldn’t really do much about the two goals but made at least one World Class save and was solid in a busy game.
Bellerin – 8.5
Great performance by the youngster and was instrumental in us Alexis’ first goal.
Mertesacker – 7
Could maybe have done more to prevent both goals but otherwise he had a strong return.
Koscielny – 7
Not quite his usual commanding self, but there was a lot more presssure than he usually gets.
Monreal – 8
As usual a very solid performance and rarely puts a foot wrong.
Flamini – 5
Didn’t live up to his billing and Leicester were on top for the 20 minutes he was on the pitch before his injury.
Cazorla – 7
Not quite as dominant as usual but a great pass to Theo!
Ozil – 8
He seems to be more prominent nowadays and that floater for Sanchez was pure class
Ramsey – 6
Still not convinced he should be played on the wing and was wasteful at times
Sanchez – 9
Three completely different goals – Sanchez is back!
Subs
Arteta – 8
Getting back to form and the side definitely improved when Flamini went off
Oxlade-Chamberlain – 7
Only 15 minutes cameo but we were more dangerous after he replaced Ramsey. No own goal this week!
Giroud – 7
Scored a decent goal, but I was worried when he missed a sitter so soon after coming on. Confidence booster hopefully.
Dunno why Ramsey gets 6 and Giroud gets 7………is it because he scored?
It’s a personal opinion. What would you have given them?
Ramsey 4, Giroud 5.5
Rambo isn’t a winger, clutters the middle, makes us narrow, gives us an imbalance, and thinks about tricks before substance too much right now. Needs the bench.
Giroud did little, missed a sitter and slotted one home. Decent appearance from the bench late, albeit classic wasteful Giroud.
RAMSEY 3
OX 4. He never defend just watching Vardy score and that is not the first time
It’s funny how people rate giroud. When he doesn’t score it’s “that is what a striker is supposed to do”…and when he scores it is ” well that’s all he did “.
I hope giroud doesn’t get tired of not getting due credit by fans cuz we definitely don’t know what we got til it’s gone.
Reply wasn’t to admin but to all others I clicked wrongly
What no mention of THEO you sure you were at the game MY Rating for Theo 8 got us back into it and some great runs. Look out United and Top next week. Make sure you are at the game CB
Artery 8 – *falls off chair*
Bit of a tired, and ignorant, joke that one. Some of our very best performances of the last few years have all been with Arteta at DM. He’s getting older now, but the idea he hasn’t got the quality is just hilarious stupidity.
Most of our worst performances were with Arteta watching opposition players run past him untouched… He’s not a DM
It was the type of game we allowed to play. Reminded me of Arsenal of three years or more. All our forward thinking players where all bombing forward but not all returning in time. I think we could have done a better all round job by soaking up the pressure and counter attacking before retreating again. Great to watch all the same.
Maybe their first goal sort of wrote the script, and I remember shouting mad before Flamini went off as he kept on getting in line with our CBs. He’s supposed to be part of a second wall not the last one and if he hadn’t of went off I reckon Leic might of got a two goal lead from an unmarked midfielder on edge of box.
Did you, the guy that discredited Coquelin all of this year because you love Schniederlin, take offence to Arteta?
Why weren’t you saying Coquelin has adequate back up before Schniederlin’s move?
Yes that is right – because you live in an alternate reality where you view changes like the weather
I can count the missed Arsneal game on 1 hand over the past half decade and I am left wondering if you have seen Arsenal recently?
Arteta had a better game against Leic BUT that doesn’t take his performances over time, he is lacking pace and if the opposition can take advantage of that and just pass past him!
When Arteta plays I can put money on the fact that other teams will use that against us and look to stretch our holding CM, playing into the chanels if the holding CM hasn’t got the legs to quickly help cover those areas.
Coquelin will help track players into the chanels which helps Bellerin and Monreal, Arteta does not and oh look at the comments, Ox and Ramsey failed to track Vardy blah blah… In all honesty I would say that Coquelin would of got himself into the area to cause trouble and made it harder for Vardy to have had those shots… Thats part of the reason why we all love him so much, Coquelin gets himself about.
Arteta has served us well, he is not a DM but he has filled in that role better than we could of asked off him BUT he is not a holding CM and with the lack of pace getting worse, he will only be made to look foolish by ‘top’ players and he doesn’t deserve that.
Arteta should retire at the end of the season, he has a good standing in general with the Arsenal fans and he has earned that respect, lets respect him back. Tell him we want to remember Arteta fondly and not as that player who refused to go and became our weak link…
He has the quality but that is becomming more and more limited due to phsical capabilities, to think otherwise is “hilarious stupidity.” 😛
yea i agree with the Ramsey/Giroud ratings. Ramsey is always poor,when you spend 75mins on the pitch and fail to have any contribution to the team and someone who came mins later on contributes to the tram, you need to be questioned.
Anyone saw Ramsey yesterday? wasting balls as soon as we had 3 goals, that’s his problem, always wanting to be on the score sheet too anytime we leading. I didn’t see Ozil wasting balls all in the name of looking for goals, yet he was perfect yesterday. We never asked Ramsey to be our scorer, contribute is all we want, if he does that then i have no problem with him scoring.
when will he get it?? he aint Iniesta!!
Theo must have been terrible….doesn’t even get a rating!!!
Koscielney deserved an 8 , DuckerSucker only 5 , he was caught ball-watching many a times & he’s way too slow when we were being counter-attacked , we could have prevented the 1st Leicester goal if only he could run a bit faster !
I agree with Wiserthan about the relative markings for Kos and Mert. Sorry you have been marked down but it seems that the BFG has a lot of support on this site. It isn’t just his lack of pace but among other things his inability to read the game. Even the author of this article said he could have done more to prevent both goals. Did you see the look that Cech gave him when he made no effort to block Vardy’s 2nd goal. Got a feeling that he is back and Gabriel will be benched again.
The second goal I agree with (although Mert wasn’t only one who should done better), but on first goal if I had to choose between Kos position and Merts position which has better chance of stopping the threat ..I would choose to be in Kos position and then closed out the threat instead of worrying about player who hasn’t got the ball. He had time before the shot to even close down the shot and the pass. The commentator mentioned this too. Also you are forgetting about who it was who played him onside.
Kos won’t be in such dilemma if he pair with Gabriel. That’s what happen if we were open play. The situation of “Per run at his back foot” will not be the first.
we need a good back up for Sanchez….
Sanchez cant play in every game…..
Wenger must sign someone when the window opens
Walcott Ramsey Welbz Cazorla Oxlade Ozil any of these can play there for a spell ..take your pick. If you mean we need another of Sanchez quality to sit behind AS well that is daft ..he’d be on the pitch. Then we have Adelaide Iwobi Gnabry Campbell one might spring a surprise.
What about Walcott’s rating? O.o
@eddy hoyte, thank u n spot on about ramsey.
Unfortunatley he’s in the “favourites cannot be dropped” section with wenger no matter what he will always play. One decent season and fans on here were comparing him with the likes of Gerrard n xavi lol he’s been bang average ever since. The only logic is that he might offer slightly more then the ox defensively who I have to admit needs to work extremely hard on that side of his game, even so ramsey constant inclusion on the wing is baffling to many a fans.
19 years of arrogance n stubbornness sadly I don’t think wenger is going to change anytime soon.
One game at a time. Forget all this title talk. Keep the performance level up. And most importantly entertain the fans.
Ox starting might not be the solution as you all witnessed at zagreb. Wenga has to find a solutiom may be ramsey needs to stop being too greedy.
@Koss
Of our current squad, Campbell is the answer for RW.
Ramsey is unproductive on the wing and the ox is a defensive liability atm – not really the best options.
Theo on the right is brilliant but we have no striker options ……..
Can’t move ozil and cazorla on the wing so we have no other choice – gnabry?
@Jonny
Gnabry’s on loan to West Brom. Campbell is the only viable option…
Sanchez as striker, Ox on the left, Walcott on the right, Ozil and Caz as CAM’s.
Alexis himself said he prefers the left, we played him in the middle and he isn’t the CF we need, he adds a lot more to our game from the left.
All you need to do is rewatch some of his earlier games with us when he was deployed in that role.
Give Theo and Alexis a bit more time to get use to playing with each other, Theo has done well drifting out to the left which has allowed Alexis to drive into the middle a bit more.
Alexis does more defending as well, Theo can not defend and that puts extra pressure on our defenders.
2 ACM? Wenger has played 2 B2B players ahead of Coquelin but to play 2 ACM with no link between Coq and attack? I would like to see Ozil learn to defend more if he isn’t going to find his scoring boots, learn from Cazorla… It would be an interesting experiment to do, play Cazorla and Ozil as 2 creative B2B players but I dont think it will trump Cazorla in a deep lying playmaker role and Ozil in the ACM role.
And OMG!
How many people do you want in the ACM role?
Ox on the left would still cut in and that would give us 3 men squashed into that spot again…
Oh and with Theo and Ox out wide then you will need a 2nd deep lying CM to help counter the lack of defending from the wide forwards…
Ofcourse ramsey is the worst player in yesterday’s match,I dnt knw what is wrong with him,he need to sit on the bench to learn more on hw to play without interfering to someone’s role despite nt fulfiling your primary role,for our yesterday’s squad he is d only problem as usual,i have to re-admit that wenger is sentimental,if nt when rosicky come back from his injury he shld be gvng dt role because he is better than ramsey both defensively nd offensively.If wenger wl stick to the rule dt ‘u play only when u deserve to’,bt i doubt very much wd wenger nd in fct i start losng hope wd wenger for hs stubbornness nd strictly adhering to the stupid nd useless principle.KWANKWASO GUNNERS.
Rosicky? No. Not as a right winger for a whole game, you want him to get bad ratings? Playing him in a role he can no longer perform at such a high level for 90mins.
Rosicky can become a supersub,bring on for Ozil to give Ozil a bit of a breather during heavy game schedule, cover Cazorla as a deep lying playmaker and let the younger legs of Coquelin cover the distances for most of it.
Rosicky has a nice burst of pace still, suprising for someone of his age 😛 but don’t let that fool you, he has a burst of pace but not enough to sustain it in a run against a young pacey fullback.
What does the Ox have to do to get a start? he is very consistent.
so no rating for Walcott? that just shows u that Giroud is stuck in u guys brain
Theo should of got a 7.5
He scored the 1st goal which was important, if he didn’t then there would of been more pressure on the team.
His movement allowed Alexis to score, just watch how Theo pulls the players marking him out to the left while freeing up the middle for Alexis to run into.
I thought Theo had a very good game and glad he got subbed when he did, I think we will need him for Olymp.. It was good to see Giroud get a goal, it wasn’t a wonder goal but it was the type of goal he has put away multiple times. It was good to see him get his basic staple goal, maybe he will pick up a bit after losing the EPL starter spot to Theo.
Giroud has scored more goals than aguero, rooney, diego costa, harry kane etc. The best any fan could do is to support and encourage him. Score or not score, if you are gonna label the guy ‘not good enough’ his confidence will go down further and we will invite more trouble. The haters will benefit from that, as it was with arshavin and eboue. Before ramsey hit everything into the net that season, many of us howled ‘he’s finished’. Had wenger listened to that, the fa cup in the cabin would not be there. If you have ever played football, you should be knowing that confidence is the foremost thing to make you execute your skills. Of course you have every right to criticise, but please lets make that constructive instead of nonsense phrases like sell him, not good enough etc. If buying was the only answer, man city and chelsea should be far ahead of us in the table, which is not the case.