My choice of which Arsenal player to give the Man of the Match to was not as simple as it might seem, even though Olivier Giroud scored two of our goals and both of them were very good. He had missed an absolute sitter earlier and there were also strong performances from Ramsey, with a goal and an assist, and Joel Campbell with two assists, but the big striker edged it with his all round game as a target and hold up man under great pressure from the Liverpool defence.
Cech 7 – Rare mistake on the first goal, safe hands after.
Bellerin 7 – Pushed back early on but stuck to his task.
Mertesacker 6 – A few dodgy moments from the BFG but made up with two late clearances.
Koscielny 7.5 – Strong game from the boss.
Monreal 7 – Quieter than usual but no real mistakes.
Flamini 7 – Coped reasonably well under heavy pressure.
Ramsey 8 – Fantastic goal and great work rate. Always looking to create chances.
Campbell 8 – Amazing effort and some great skill from the Costa Rican.
Ozil 7 – Crowded out for much of the game but showed his class when possible.
Walcott 6 – Some good movement and play but at fault for the opener and largely on the fringes.
Giroud 8.5 – Towering performance but how did he miss that sitter?
subs:
Gibbs 6 – Did alright in limited time.
Chamberlain 6 – Not much of an impact as we defended.
Arteta 6 – Hardly any time on the pitch.
I saw a bright light and then all I heard was – na na na na
sounds like schizophrenia
I must say sorry to Campbell, I never at any time rated him anything close to an Arsenal player. He`s proving me wrong. He`s worked so hard on his turning and placing cute passes. Good luck to the lad.
Giroud is decent CF. he just got unfair sticks due to his way of running. the same goes to Per. both them are slow. but both of them are well above average.
Currently Arsenal’s top scorer with 18 goals in all competitions, Giroud is four goals away from matching his best season’s tally in a red and white shirt – and it’s only January.
As well as that, it may surprise you to know that, with a rate of 0.7 a game, the former Montpellier man has scored more non-penalty goals per 90 minutes in the league than players like Thomas Muller, Cristiano Ronaldo and Antoine Griezmann, and he’s not far off Lionel Messi’s tally of 0.74 per game.
And it’s not just this season that he’s delivered the goods, since 2013/14 only Sergio Aguero (51) has more Premier League goals than Giroud (42).
Oh, and just for fun…
Goals scored in the last 11 games.
Olivier Giroud: 11 – Manchester United: 11
I don’t think C.ronaldo or Messi comes close to scoring in their last 11 games.
Not only is Giroud scoring plenty of goals for Arsenal, but he’s increasingly showing himself to be the man for the big occasion.
So far this season, the France international has scored two goals away to Liverpool, one away to joint-league leaders Leicester City, and one, the winner, at home to main title rivals Manchester City.
In the Champions League, Giroud has scored home and away against Bayern Munich, and also netted a crucial hat-trick to fire Arsenal through from their group in their final game at Olympiakos.
This is nothing new either, last season he got scored twice against Liverpool, twice against Manchester City, once against Manchester United and once in the FA Cup final win over Aston Villa.
Something you won’t see a lot of people giving him credit for, but it’s fair to say Giroud is a pretty strong character to turn things around the way he has.
Quickly written off by many Arsenal fans, it took seven games for Giroud to score his first goal for the club, and some admittedly bad misses rather unfairly started to gain more attention than anything good he did on the pitch.
Wenger himself has clearly not always been convinced by him either, having tried several times to use Theo Walcott, Alexis Sanchez or Danny Welbeck as better options up front, but Giroud has seen off the threat of all of them.
Not bad, Olivier.
Giroud…….Congrats Bro. You played very well yesterday (MOTM). He has been playing with his heart. We don’t see the Giroud that squander chances with his tongue out anymore.. We now see a Giroud that put most of his chances in the back of the net. He scores the hardest goals and sometimes bottles the easy ones but He is willing to learn and always tries his best. Welldone!
By the way check out His Puma boots on his twitter page…Sick!
Walcott should have been a 4..
Can’t wait for Sanchez to come and combine with sanchez
And Ozil, this kinda games are not for him,it will be very good if we can start Rosicky,Sanchez and Elneny at Stoke…
OT:
Pls what is Elneny’s squad number??
sanchez is gonna combine with sanchez?
new signing alert!!!
who is this mysterious new sanchez????
What…? Wait.. You want us to throw in a completely new player, and two players recovering from injury.. But fear Stoke away is presumably, too physical for Ozil? A.) we’d lose and B.) that makes no sense…
OFF TOPIC:
Real and Atletico Madrid have been slapped with a 2-window transfer ban for shady deals with youth players!
Hahahahahahah
they both have good enough squads- now they just wont sell anyone-
so really its ours an everyone elses loss
Unless a certain someone has a release clause…
suarez had a release clause..an wanted to leave did we get him?
lol
They will probably stock buy in January then
Hazard, rojo to Real Madrid ??
Meanwhile athletico Madrid may want to replace Jackson
Lolzzz @ muff…naughty u
Sanchez to combine with Campbell…smiles**
@ Josh…
I don’t think Elneny won’t be able to start against Stoke, does it really mean???
Ozil’s influence reduces whenever we play physical teams whereas Rosicky can cope with better…
And lastly, everyone knows Sanchez is a little different from other playersni don’t wanna see Walcott start that match
MOTM Giroud without a doubt not because of the goals but the work rate. He is absorbing a lot of punishment from defenders and still he goes for it. Walcott runs away from any contact and Ox the same.
I think Mert was much better than 6
Ramsey works hard but still in these situations like last night you need cazorla to keep the ball and calm the game Ramsey cant do that. Going forward Ramsey is better though
we cant expect miracle from Arteta if he plays only the last 5 minutes whether he should play sufficient time or not. I think with Elneny arrival better to let Arteta stay on the bench until end of the season
Mert was poor early before making good clearances late. A poor clearance owing mainly to his awkwardness and lack of athleticism cost us a goal. We need to replace him with Gabriel.
To me, cech (as usually) and walcot were not good enough
Elneny: I want to win the treble with
Arsenal this season!……Class
what was he gonna say….
i want to see if london is any good…and that french fella is paying me loads of money
92stamina on p FIFA not that it’s anything to go by, but it’s going to be great to have his energy in the run in
How can you rate Ramsey 8 ? I did´nt see Ramsey do one tackle yesterday or i better say in the 2 games he had played i 2016 im still waiting for a tackle from Mr. Cotton. It´s not that I don´t like Ramsey but if you play in the middel of the park, you need to work hard. Yesterday he was all over the place except the middel. I my book Ramsey need to sit on the bench and wait to come on when Ozil need a break or on Right wing when campbell it tired of running up/down right wing
spot on …. he gets forward which is good but doesnt get back which is a disaster esp when flamini is other DM … excellent cover but not in starting 11
Ramsey doesn’t get back? The reason why Ramsey goes so far forward is because he is so willing to run back and defend. the man is all over the pitch!
Ramsey is gonna make dumb mistakes but he does the dirty work that the rest of the midfield refuses to do. Give him credit.
I think Monreal was outstanding yesterday and deserves an 8.
These kinda games, where teams press high up thepitch, are tailor made for Cazorla… With his impeccable close control and vision would have run rings around the pool midfield..
Anyway, onwards and upwards.. COYG!
* he would have
OT,why the EPL PHYSIOROOM Shows we have only one player injured?Those news updated today!!!Can SOMEONE tell us pls…
B.s. Wilshire, santi, welbz, coq are all inj
sorry gotta agree currently watching the game and Motm by a mile for a complete performance is Joel campbell, passing, tracking back, dribbling, all around game just gets better and better.
i know alot of people have not mentioned this so il be the 1st, I think Cech should have done better for the 1st and 3rd goal. Iv noticed something quite worrying about Cech, now dont get me wrong hes world class and his biggest strength is his reading of the game and his positioning but when he is slightly wrong footed iv never seen him save a shot, the west ham plus yesterday and a few other games prove this. All im saying David de gea or lloris would 100% have saved the 1st and 3rd goal yesterday that is a fact.
Massive game against stoke, for me Elneny has got to play no way can flamini handle 2 games in 3/4 days No way, Sanchez for walcott also i would say but depends on his fitness.
A must win game now no excuses