Arsenal lost to Wolves last night as Mikel Arteta’s side continue to pay for their lack of cutting edge in all areas.
The fans will have been expecting a decent game from the team, but the players gave them more reasons not to trust them.
Here are the Arsenal player ratings.
Bernd Leno – 5
Didn’t have much to do in the second half, but even he knows that he fluffed his lines for Wolves’ second goal. Couldn’t do anything about the first.
Hector Bellerin – 3
Wolves identified him as a weak point and exploited it. He will see Neto and Podence in his nightmares because of the troubles they caused him.
David Luiz – 5
Wasn’t himself after his worrying clash of heads with Raul Jimenez. Managed to finish the first half, Arsenal will hope he doesn’t have more problems.
Gabriel – 6
Scored his second goal, but defensively, this is probably his worst performance for Arsenal since he signed in the summer. Yet he was one of the shining lights for the Gunners in the game.
Kieran Tierney – 3
He will tremble whenever he hears the name Adama Traore, that is how bad the Wolves man terrified him. Got his positioning wrong most times too.
Dani Ceballos – 4
Such a different player from the one that played for the club last season. Couldn’t create or defend.
Granit Xhaka – 4
Bullied by Wolves. Got his passes right, but the team needed more from him.
Joe Willock – 4
He is just Europa League material. Struggled at Leeds, struggled here again.
Willian – 4
He gets a 4 despite providing an assist. He is looking like a terrible signing and he is just too old to need more time.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – 3
Played through the middle again and still cannot buy a goal. Missed a fine chance to level the game with his head.
Bukayo Saka – 4
Wolves made sure he had no chance to run at them. He missed a fine chance again like he did at Leeds. Poor night from the youngster.
Substitutes
Rob Holding – 4
Struggled against a very stubborn Wolves attack and got himself booked for his troubles.
Reiss Nelson – 5
Looked like he would do something to the scoreline, but didn’t do anything about it, but he was a bright spark in the second half.
Alexandre Lacazette – N/A
Manager
Mikel Arteta – 2
Starting to look well out of his depth, cannot have many chances left to get it right.
well i think you have been to generous, apart from GM who i would probably give a 6 to, all the others can go home with a 2/10
bloody wasters!
Said before the wolves game that I wouldn’t be surprised if we lost next 3 games, now I am sure we will,
I am supporting arsenal since 1979 and I can honestly say I have never seen such a bunch of looser s, pussies like Bellerin, xakai.,willian,ozil,cebbello,auba,lacca,should never play for this great club,
Arteta is clueless, the team is actually worse now than when he took over.
Please arsenal get auero,and a striker in January and get brendan Rodgers, just maybe then get top 4…
True Jim, I had my fingers crossed when i read the team sheet, Xhaka – Cabellos the the MF is a lost cause, Willian then the forwards are a lost cause. Laca and Nelson are not game changers anyways, so being 14th or 15th with this squad is no surprise. Bellerin, Soares, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Xhaka, Cabellos, Elneny, Willian, Laca, Pepe and a bench of Luiz, Socrates, Ozil (pre lock-down), Nelson, Willock, sure any manager would get us relegated. Then we grumble we are mid table when we have accumulated championship relegation stuff, these guys would not be wanted even by a team involved in a dog fight for championship survival. Change the manager or who ever you want, till these players are booted out of the club, nothing will change. Accept cup success, till we have Arteta.
Players should not be rated when so called coach makes a total mess !
in defense he plays Luiz again when we all thought i finally got to not do so.
in middle, with a all & made he made with Luiz in defense; Partey is out, but he plays 3 midfield who are not natural defensive players.
How can ypu lose Partey and replace him with Ceballos, expect him to also feed attacks, jold ball? How if he runs like a chicken in his own half defending which is not his position?
What about the attack? No one to really pass the ball as thry all try to make up for 2 defending midfields Partey Elneny…
He should have sply played Niles who i
can defend, cut attacks and rush forward, with Elneny.. Then pick between Xhaka, Willock or Ceballos.
Willian in attack as he does with Luiz, obliges Laca & nelson to sit
Saka was not sure to start, should have been benched, protected and come during game if anythong.
Auba Laca Nelson
auba Laca Saka
Elneny Niles
. ……………laca
nelson Auba Saka
Also works upon game plan…
But we all saw Arteta 11, so of course players look lost as they are for a year.
So many options, but he pulls some unreal stuff!
He should get a ZERO and players not rate-able…
He needs to be fired immediatly and bring Alegri and Wenger as President he should have been, kept in club
Get rid of all that useless dumboard. Doubt for Wenger; today we need a coach as Allegri to put some order, we have the or one of best squad in Epl. An apprentice coach making a mess but doing his best. He took job offered to him cant be blamed for thag but for taking it iwithojt humility & sense to go learn bob elswhere first.
ve said, he is becoming better with time, go and dlo that elswhere instead to ridiculize himself while destroying us!
So should we revert to 343 or stick with 4231?
MA knows our weakness and fans were calling for a change in formation. 343 made up stable and with the players we have, a back four won’t help for now.
Teams are beginning to expose our right side of defence. They see bellerin as a weaker link in our team. From Villa, Leicester, leeds and wolves have all scored from that place.
Arteta needs time to ship out players and bring in new ones. Klopp used 2 seasons to build the lfc team and MA deserves that. KT has also turned into a back pass player. He was direct when he arrived. Most of our players do that and it’s not helping our attack. Without service to our attackers, we shouldn’t expect goals from Auba or Laca.
I prefer the 343 formation to the 4231 cos we don’t have the players to defend counter attacks.
MA deserves nothing! only managers who can show a little bit of process deserve time.. we arent some charity club to help rookie managers
There seems to be constant references to Kloop. I believe MA will be a good manager but I am beginning to doubt it will be with us. As I recall at no point did Kloop preside over a Liverpool team that was falling so quickly down the table? Maybe I am wrong, so the Kloop refences make no sense. With him Pool and their fans could see a clear plan for the future. With MA at the moment there seems to be no plan, either game or future. Let’s see how the next few games go.
Next few games, we will be in the relegation zone, let him go, he is clueless.
I prefer their EL tactic, where Willock made many crosses from the right side. If I’m not mistaken, they used 4-3-3 when they had the ball and 3-4-3 when they didn’t, with Willock on the right side of the central midfield
4-2-3-1 is okay as long as it can dynamically be changed into 3-4-3 when defending and if Ceballos plays behind the striker. Having a towering target man would likely help a lot too, since our ground passes are still mostly inaccurate and rushed
Lastly, Arsenal shouldn’t recruit a new player from other league based on his marketable aspect and penalty goals/ assists. Klopp’s recruitment policy was frowned upon when he bought Wijnaldum from Newcastle, Mane from Southampton, Robertson from Hull and Jota from Wolves, but he obviously wanted tenacious players who are excellent in duels or one-on-one situations and have enough EPL experience
How does the 4231 formation expose our wings if we are playing with wing backs?
Plus we have wingers who can defend in Saka and Ainsley MN. The coach keeps selecting the wrong tools for the job. That’s where the problem lies. Willock should never have been on the pitch Same with Willian. They are weak bro. That is why Bellerin was under pressure. They game was lost in the midfield.
I’m afraid the ratings reflect perception rather than reality in many cases. Having watched the entire match, I find that Tierney was actually”skinned” by Traore on one occasion which led to the goal. To me Xhaka, was the poorest player on the pitch closely followed by Ceballos,Luis and Bellerin who has been doing well recently.As for the cynical comments on Willock, he was our only competitive midfielder yesterday and will go on to prove his doubters wrong.
I fully agree with your observation, Xhaka and Ceballos let us down as they set the pace of the game. Tierny had a problem containing Traore. Leno should have also done better. Arteta was not able to read the game and make the necessary substations in time. Willock and Saka tried. Arteta should have known the team we were playing and pick the right players. Niles should have earned a call. Arteta is clueless.
Grandad, I also found the Tierney comment /Mark questionable.
Also, what support did Bellerin have from the midfield?
The other ratings are on par with the performances, including Arteta’s in my opinion.
Grandad your right the older players know the game they been around the block a few times. We need to play the youngsters they give their all every time
Didn’t see match but I have no regrets..
I saved 2 hrs of my life and which I used get amazing sleep..
Terribly hard on Tierney who was expected to push forward and then back peddle when the ball was lost through no fault of his own. His combination with Saka was one of the few positives and he also put in some good crosses and won some good corners. How could you rate him below Xhaka? Must have been watching a different game.
Could Xhaka get into any of the top 5 teams? No. So why do all the managers we’ve had have faith in him.
He offers nothing to the team.
Bellerin
Xhaka
Ceballos
Willian
Laca
These players must leave our club.
Phenom, We sold the wrong goalkeeper, and we need to release a lot of the deadwood or we will be looking for a new manager soon
Yeah recently it was stated that Arteta is the best thing that ever happened to Arsenal. Willian is the best signing. And Xhaka has improved under Arteta. I always criticised all three statements, but Arsenal fans saw me as an enemy. Lots of fans said that there’s no crisis in last week article. Do we still believe that there’s no crisis?
👍…you know you are not suppose to say these things. Now all the loyal ancient Arsenal fans will come out and you will be branded spuds.
Well, according to a certain Mr. Jon Fox, we naysayers and “Spursy Gooners” must remain quiet and never utter a word of discontent, but watch on in perpetual patience as our team flops week in, week out: for regardless of the glaring signs to the contrary, the All-mighty, All-knowing Mikel Arteta is about to become Arsenal’s greatest ever Manager – even better than Arsène Wenger at the height of his powers in 3…2…1…
“Spursy Gooners”? That’s contradiction in terms. What does it even mean?🤔
I told you many weeks ago PEPE was not an EPL player now will you believe me
The main problem is the club culture. If we look at Emery’s Villareal and Mourinho’s Tottenham now, we can see they weren’t the main problems at Arsenal and Man United
Players/ managers/ directors came and left Arsenal, but the movie is still the same and there’s only one person remain at the club in the last fifteen years. The complacency culture starts from the top of Arsenal hierarchy like a chain reaction and bad examples are highly infectious
There is one reassuring statement from Roy Keane, Arsenal have enough to stop them from going down!
Or have we????
It’s unthinkable that Arsenal in a season when we expected to get Champions League qualification via a top four spot could be relegated, and then to complete the (cosmic?) irony Spurs win the Premier League.
😱The worst of the worst of all unexpected outcomes.
Please, let’s not go there, Jax! 🤬
But, maybe this Arsenal team do need a relegation fight? Maybe that would be the catalyst this club needs to make them realise how bad they have become? Maybe we do need to hit rock bottom after all?!
Tierney was beaten once, ok it led to a goal but he was a 5 for me. Gabriel scored but had a bad game defensively and gets a 4 from me. Leno was piss poor for both goals, 3. Xhaka, 2, strolling around like he was on holiday. Willock was in my opinion our best player, not least for actually trying, 6.
Agree with other ratings.
The problem in arsenal is the owners and the board.they always make sure the team is not complete. This season we needed an Attacking midfielder and a defensive midfielder.
They bought one and relay on mediocre players to do the job of a quality player,it won’t work as simple as ABCD.
There is always something lacking in the team and they base that to make excuses and to divide fans.
With these players and attitude, no coach will succeed.
We buy players as soon as they come the get injured WHY?
@Declan what do u think Leno could have done with both goals?
No GK in the world could have stopped the first goal and the second deflected on bellerin’s backside.
What could he have done?
Where was the defenders when the rebound came?
Spot on! The problem lay squarely on the board. No coach can succeed with this present crop of players. Its time the remnants of players from Wenger era are replaced to have a genuine chance of rebuilding. Many of the current young lads in the club are not good enough to play week in and out in this present EPL the truth must be told. There is something fundamentally wrong with the clubs recruitment policy. We have seen many established players in the lower division do well in the EPL why is Arsenal not looking in this direction instead of buying players that are past their prime from other clubs( the case of Peter Cech, Mikytarian, Papastapopolous, Leceinster, David Luiz, Welberg, Mustafi, Williams). Something just don’t add up at Arsenal! Until whatever it is identified and addressed no meaningful progress will be recorded .
Henry They tried to sell them nobody wants them can you blame them Feckin Deadwood
I think MA should have brought on Nketiah for Auba atleast the lad has an eye for goals. Nelson should have come on earlier. All in all I dont know where Arteta is taking us, we are going down and down with every game. We have to rise up and rise up fast. If the Spuds game next Sunday is not a motivator to play well and start winning, I dont know what else can motivate this team. Arteta must release the shackles and let the team fly and play their natural game. Also I feel we should revert to the 343 system, and play 433 when we have the possession.
In the 3-4-3 formation, Xhaka’s good because he’s only required to drop deep and cover the left flank from counter-attacks. But in the last match, we saw the return of clueless Xhaka. He’s too slow and frequently exposed, he’s simply not good as a midfield anchor. I frequently saw the two central defenders had to cover the flanks and left a big space in the middle.
Ceballos was surprisingly very bad yesterday and out of the three midfielders, it was only Willock who put in a decent performance. Maybe Arteta should try Saka in midfield, call back Elneny, or experiment with Emile Smith Rowe.
But more importantly, I think Arteta needs to sort out the defensive problems ASAP because it’s very hard to score goals when we’re constantly behind and the opponents defend deep. Not to mention the threat from counters so players couldn’t fully commit to attack.
What some of the fellow fans who have been calling for Arteta support and calling ppl spuds for critising here don’t understand is the long term impact this whole Arteta thing will have on the club. I bet most the fans out side England became fan of the club because if our playing style and type of football we played under Wenger. We loose a lot of fan base and actually we are loosing fans for moving away from beautiful football to old boring days again. On top of that if you take into consideration finishing out of Europe again it will cost us so much financially. Sponsorship money and TV rights will go down as well. The hole we are digging up is not something you can come out of then. All the fans of top clubs do not tolerate bad results and mediocrity then why Arsenal fans are willing to shows our fan base mind set. Stop with all the klopp comparison, the people who are doing comparison with klopp need to go back and check his record with Liverpool the dude finished in champions League ever since his first season and even in his first season he did finish runner up in UEFA cup not to mention winning champions League and EPL on his way to here. Also point to note is he came with a reputation so everyone knew he has done it before as his track record proved it. Wake up Arsenal fans!! If you want your club to be counted as one of the big clubs in Europe then we as fans should set high standards.
I don’t why some coach wannabe keep talking about tactics and formation when we lose when what is really lacking in our game is football basis. We can’t mark, we can tackle and don’t attack irrespective of the formation we use and some keep talking about formation. Would change of formation have prevented the second goal. No urgency, no desire and the coach is content to allow his team play so slow and play backwards all the time even whenunder no pressure and allow the opponent to regroup. We conceded two goals against Villa in the same version we conceded the Wolves second goal. We just moved backwards from our half into our box and not closing down their player with the ball. We seem to give opponents free time on the ball to do what they like and expect Leno to do miracles. The second wasn’t his fault as it was a deflected shot and we had four players infront of him with non of them trying to mark the player with the ball. If Arteta likes he should employ 10-0-0 if he still adopt shadow marking and not instruct his team to close and actually mark ( contact marking) the opponent player with the ball we are going nowhere.
Spot on Mobella. Been pointing out the lack of urgency and movement for weeks.
Without the ball, our pressing (if we can even call it that) lacks coordination and real intent to win the ball back. With the ball, our movement (or the lack of it) is lacklustre and denies us the space to attack and interplays to penetrate.
Even if we try out every single formation there is in football, it’s still not going to make a meaningful difference, unless we sort out our desire to win back the ball early and our movement to allow interplays like one-twos and overlaps.
We can sign 20 new players and it won’t make a meaningful difference if we get them to continue with the shadow marking and remaining static after passing the ball to a teammate.
I’ve been repeating this week after week to the point where I feel like a broken record
When opponents attack us we back away WHY? the come into our half they are the enemy so we should PRESS them it is not rocket science and why keep passing back what’s that all about TORI TORI TORI attack
Its a poor poor match .. and i do believe we seriously need a creative midfielder ..someone who can change the game ….someone who can offer us plan B ….
I still believe in MA …but his time is running out …
I have supported the gooners since Charlie George slammed in the winner against Liverpool in the 1971 FA Cup final and then went on to clinch the double beating the spuds at the lane. The worst side I’ve seen was Terry Neils dustbins and the best the invicibles, but right now I am very worried. The truth is in recent weeks we haven’t been beaten by top four sides we have been outclassed by Leeds, Villa and Wolves all of which taught us how to attack at pace.
But lets not be silly and stop saying one week we will win the league ( after Man U ) and the next we will be fighting relegation, we are a team in transition and as Paul Merson said a mid table side.
We can talk about 434, 433, 442 all day but at the end of the day these players are not good enough and the manager is a novice, and don’t get me started on recruitment and penny pinching.
I love AFC and will continue to suffer with all of you, come back AW all is forgiven. Anyone else fancy all those unbroken years in the champion league and a few FA Cups wins again.
Good to see that you’ve remained an optimist. I myself have come to expect the worst but hope for the best.
I remember Billy Wright as Arsenal’s worst performance manager, but in his defence he did start a successful youth policy which served us well for a number of years.
Player ratings, tactics, who should play who shouldn’t’.
Gone way beyond all that.
We’ve “withered on the vine” for years, and at all levels are now suffering from severe neglect.
I hate to agree , but Keane is 100% correct ……. WE ARE SIMPLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH !
AJ ,something is clearly troubling Auba; not one warm smile. Why?
Hi @georgie b.
Yes, clearly a character that has “changed overnight”
Personally, I do not buy into the “not pulling his weight since contract signed” theory.
Any pro worth their salt should be above that – personal pride.
For what’s it’s worth I believe Auba is getting immensely frustrated – as we all are.
Broken transfer promises by the club ?
Dissatisfaction with the treatment of other squad members ?
Realisation signing the thing was a mistake i.e. last big contract spent in turmoil.
Whatever, something is clearly wrong – right to the very core of our great club.
Only the current Arsenal set-up could wipe the smile from this guys face !
Take care.
If anyone remembers, I posted the game will be won or lost in the midfield. And looking at our midfield you just knew we were in trouble.
Why are ppl surprised about Ceballos? Is it that easy to forget he was horrible for us until the restart last season?