Arsenal player ratings v Crystal Palace – Four get just 3/10
We had a fantastic opportunity today against Crystal Palace to grab a win and move into third position in the Premier League with just four games to go, but what did we do? We blew it.
When Christian Benteke scores against you then you just know you are in for a bad day, he is utterly useless in front of the goal and so you have to question what the hell happened with our defence.
Further goals from Wilfried Zaha and James McArthur condemned us to a 3-2 defeat ending our 10-match winning league run at the Emirates.
Goals from Mesut Ozil and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang gave us hope of course, but then we needed to send out a search party for the German and hope the others did not join him in the wilderness, though to be brutally honest some had gone ahead of him in search of Cuckoo land.
Players Ratings
Bernd Leno 8
My man of the match because without him the defeat could have been even bigger.
Carl Jenkinson 3
We would have been better off playing with ten men than having Jenkinson on the field such was his poor performance.
Shkodran Mustafi 3
Utterly useless and the sad sad thing is, it is not the first time he has been so poor.
Konstantinos Mavropanos 4
He was poor and deserved to be yanked but at least he did try and if he could have shot straight he may even have scored.
Laurent Koscielny 6
He tried I will give him that but he was basically the only half decent defender we had today and he cannot do it all.
Sead Kolasinac 3
Appalling display today, whenever he had the ball he panicked and simply had no clue what to do with it.
Mohamed Elneny 3
How was he picked? that is it, that is all I can say about him.
Mesut Ozil 4
He gets a seven for his goal and loses three for then packing up and going home to play on his Xbox, I mean, where the bloody hell was he?
Matteo Guendouzi 5
What can I say, he tried but that is all he did really.
Alexandre Lacazette 7
Played his part and was instrumental in the Ozil goal but when no one is serving you how can you be expected to deliver, not his fault he has no creativity behind him.
Pierre Emerick Aubameyang 7
A nice goal that gave us hope and like Lacazette he will never truly shine if he has no decent service.
Substitutes
Iwobi 5
Was an improvement on a few of the players but barely.
Maitland-Niles 6
Hopefully, Emery will have learned his lesson today and never play Jenkinson in place of Maitland-Niles again.
Torreira 5
I have absolutely no answer to why Emery picked Elneny over Torreira, absolutely none and he did make a difference when he came on, just not enough.
Ground hog day (again)..
No surprise about that performance or result!
This team will never move forward until the club, manager and players change the ethos back to the winning mentality we used to have! NOT this “top 4 will do” attitude!!!
This team will never move forward until the ethos changes from a profit oriented commercial enterprise back to a great football club.
My worry with Emery is he approaches games the same as Wenger. Start with a weak team and hope for the best. If things go bad bring the better players on. For years Ferguson would start strong, get a decent lead then bring weaker players on. Arsenal gave never learnt from this approach.
With Lacazette and Aubameyang, Ozil has fantastic fire power At his disposal and he wastes it.
OZIL needs to go!
I don’t understand why fans love him so much.
£300,000 per week for what?
A ridiculous waste of money
People say he doesn’t play well against top teams and important matches. He doesn’t seem to play well against lower teams either.
Not to mention he doesn’t defend or try to retrieve the ball either
Mustafi, Elneny and Jenkinson needs to go too
It just does not work like that and you know this.Ozil needs service too.What is he expected to do? Sit in front of the back four? Win the ball himself?Then try and create?
He made the runs.He covered ground.He was finding space.He Just was not given the ball.
Once again it’s easy to see that some will use a bad team performance to blame Ozil.This was no different to Everton.A midfield of mediocrity with a defence with ZERO ability to defend.
But just blame Ozil.
I agree. Ozil did his part and got us a goal. However, El Neny and Guendouzi crippled our midfield with their excessive though expected, back and sideways passing. Ultimately this way Emery’s fault. Watching that ball go from Mustafi to Guendozi to El Neny then sideways to Jenkinson then back to Koscielny then to Kolasinac then back to Guendouzi then Mustafi…it was sickening! Brings me back to the Arteta-Flamini days!
Exactly right QD-we had no urgency in midfield and were very easy to play against.When did we ever see either Elneny or Guendouzi try to drive forward from midfield.I bet Hodgson couldn’t believe his luck when he saw our team sheet.
It failed at Everton with those two in midfield.Why did Emery believe he would make it succeed this time?
And why set up with a 3/5 at home to Palace?We could have gone 4/3/1/2 and gone at them.We needed to win yet seemed as though we set up not to lose.
So we have gone from a Manager who got his selection,line-up and tactics so perfect in Napoli to a Manager who looked as clueless as his predecessor 3 days later.
And as far as Mustafi goes-I would honestly put an 18 year old in his place rather than have him in the team.And could someone explain just how this player ever managed to get himself picked for Germanys 2014 World Cup Winning squad.He is upnthere with the worst CB’s I have ever seen.And let’s face it Wenger bought enough duds over the years.A terrible player who we will be lucky to get off our hands on a free%
Couldn’t agree more with Phil And QD. A mark of 4 for Ozil Admin, obviously not a fan.
The only time we looked good was when we got Ozil on the ball but unfortunately that wasn’t enough because of the lack of quality around him.
Ozil was one of Arsenal’s better players in this match. He was forced to drop deep to collect the ball due to the poor performance of his fellow midfielders. Ozil also tracked back in defense and scored a class goal. I wish Iwobi would take lesskns from Ozil about composure in front of goal.
Young AMN can show Kolasinac a thing or two about crossing a ball as well.
That you described is what I have seen all season irrespective of the players in our midfield except when Torreria is in their I see less of that. I have being pointing out here every matches that we build up too slowly for a team that wants to win trophies. Opposition players that we hardly counterattack all they need to do is just work back into their position and stifle our attack. How many times has by boy Iwobi got into the box and dilly dally until he was swarmed by the opposition players. Emery needs to cut all these out and start trusting in our academy players. Give those guys chances they can’t do worse than those senior played
I don’t need to say much on mustafi,elnenny and jenkinson but to be honest we could have won this match and lost at wolves… But now we have lost at the emirates and need to win at wolves…so no much difference…is only painful to lose at home…. I’m confident that ARSENAL will win on Wednesday…so let’s just relax
Very generous ratings… Mustafi should have had 0…
So true Sue. As you may well know, I’ve been saying for ages how much of a liability Mustafi is!
I have also said the same about Xhaka being a liability too. I’m not changing my mind on him just yet too..
?
Iwobi 5
Ozil 4
Ok then that makes all the sense in the world ,ozil had no service from the players behind which resulted in him falling deeper and deeper as the game went on again ,I’m not sure what you expected from him when emery started 7defensive players once again ,and at home .palace played 442 there was no need to play 5 at the back ,as emery found out by going 4 at the back at half time .
Our club is in an average state ATM ,can you imagine what palace thought when our only attacking player to come from the subs bench was iwobi .i bet there was sheer panic amongst them ?
Even I panicked Dan!!!!And he was on our side
?
I mean that shot in the last 5mins that he had that trickled to keeper ,that in itself is enough to be put on the transfer list ,I’ll admit he wasn’t the only one yesterday ,at least 4of them shouldn’t be anywhere near this club .
But at least it was on target-The Lagos Messi is improving
It won’t be long before he is WREAKING HAVOC
???????????
That’s a funny one
I’ve got-an-idea
??
He did get a pre assist though
And he wreaked.. but I don’t know what of ?
Ozil was good yesterday. He gave accurate passes and was the only player trying to push forward in the first half. He deserves more respect. Your ratings are biased
Accurate ratings though I believe El Neny, Jenkinson, Mustafi and Guendouzi should get no more than 1 each. Emery should get a zero.
If we are being honest, at least 80% of this team wouldn’t even get slight consideration from any top club in world football..
It’s the reality of who Arsenal have become over the last 10 years of Wenger’s miss-guided insight and trust in players who were simply “not good enough”.
Emery is left with a lot of sh*t and yet, Wonkey Kronke will NOT be opening the cheque book too much this summer. You can guarantee that!
Emery is achieving miracles with this squad .We are still in 4th place , semi finals of the Europa league and yet most on this site are still not happy.What else do you expect from a squad of players no better than Everton?
I never said Emery was not achieving, considering the “sh*t” he was left with. On the contrary he is doing very well! I simply said the squad is not good enough. Especially for CL or a PL title.
As you also said, this squad is not much better than Everton. Which was basically what I was saying.
The fact is, we would not be in fourth place (22 point off top) if the club had been managed better (from top to bottom). We should also be in the CL (with the elite teams) and not the Europa League!
Our away record is with the very worst in Arsenal history. We are just fortunate that Man U, Spurs and Chelsea have also had some bad results!
My point is, this is not where Arsenal should be as the stadium is all but paid for and the revenue that the club makes is massive. Why leave Highbury for the Emirates if you don’t challenge at the same level you aspired or intended to? Great stadium, average players.. Why?
Remind me why Arsenal left Highbury again; to compete with the best? Gazidis must be still laughing, but we’re not!
When you say miracle are you referring to the one of yesterday because it is a miracle to put Guen any Mo together again after what happened at Everton. He is indeed a miracle walker.
GunnerRay, I am totally with you and your comments. WeNGER IS THE ONE TO BLAME AND GAZIDIS. AND KROENKE. Emery has had no choice but to work with a club with not a single top , reliable and available real quality outfield defender. NOT ONE! No proper money given to buy one. A squad with so little depth that he had to rotate sooner or later and fate, injuries , suspensions , conspired to force him to rest key players either yesterday or in tougher still away games. He chose the least risky option, correctly in my minority view, and it failed. Only a few days ago he was being hailed as a saviour by many of the idiots who are now spreading their vile poison about him on here. Small minded little people, all of them, with scarcely a decent brain among them all! An inability, even an unwillingness to look at the wider picture. I guess brains, fairness and realism is not gifted to many of us. Sigh! Just rash reactionary spite. Double sigh!!
Agree with your post Jon but I’m sure Unai knew he was taking a chance yesterday playing Guendouzi, Elneny and Jenkinson, he just thought he had enough to beat Palace. He took a chance and it never worked. I’m not going to berate him for it, if it would have worked and we were able to field a fresh side against Wolves everyone would have hailed it a masterstroke. We now have to get a minimum of 4 points from the next two away games. It’s going to be tough but the Champions League is the prize.
Kenny, that masterstroke” you speak of is just my whole point. There is no sensible analysis from the majority of, frankly, thick people who write their spite. One minute a saviour, thee next minute a villain. That is unthinking tosh that mature, wise and thinking fans well know is true. It is also typical of how the newer breed of “we want what we want and we want it NOW ” people, who claim fandom for themselves but know practically nothing other than what they want, behave in this “snowflake” age we have to live in. Vengeful hatred or adoring overhyped love and nothing in between. We at Arsenal are far from alone in having these sort of people as fans. It is the price we pay for having brought up a generation of people who cannot even think independently without a computer or some gadget telling them how to think. Brainless idiots and they make me sick with despair!
All started with political correctness, which equates to “democracy gone mad”
??and some people need to grow up and toughen up.
..says alot when suddenly you-know-who finds his scoring boots following a year of being literally no threat whatsoever..
That’s what annoys me the most. We always play terrible strikers back into form. Our defending is so generous at times.
Even Bobby Zamora and Darren Bent somehow used to find their scoring boots against us!
demis rusos, huckleberry fin, leghorn-foghorn, tweety pie, grandad (grom only fools) and chief ironside could score against us im begining to think..
???
soon as he seen our defensive choice he’d have thought his xmas had come early. Yes its strange how countless other players return to form after putting our haphazard defenders to the test. If players don’t fear us they will not respect us – some of our squadies do not instill that fear factor.
ratings: how about an overall 4 team effort – after all we’re still with a chance of sealing that 4th poisition.
Very harsh on Ozil (this may be my first positive Ozil post). He worked harder than I’ve seen him in ages, took his goal well and coped as well as you could expect in a midfield that lacked any other creativity.
Very concerned about Kolasinac once he gets into the final third. His decision making is almost always wrong. Perhaps Emery could find a good Finishing School for him and Iwobi .
AMN deserves a higher score. He was excellent going forward and defensively.
Our manager must be betting games otherwise he should have learned from the game we played against Everton that pairing the same players (Elneny and Guindoz) in the midfied ,there was going to be disaster.
Interesting thought “betting games”
Disgraceful and disrespectful comments.
And I guarantee we will see a different wolves team on wed been poor recently but produce the goods against the big teams so will not be surprised 1 bit if we get turned over there. Missed a great opportunity yesterday and could live to regret it!!
Whoever hasn’t scored a goal for ages for Wolves, you can guarantee they’ll score on Wednesday (I may even put a bet on ?)
I thought Auba did very little and was very terrible until he score the second goal, even the pundits criticised him, and I thought Ozil scored a goal and the pundits said he tried to open the game up, and he did not get the service needed. So how come admin’s rating gave Aubameyang 7, and gave Ozil 5. Have a nice day everyone.
I think the admin did it on purpose to change the topic seen that ozil is always an easy way out. It surprised me but then I think the admin is way smarter than that. ☝️
I’m more pissed off at Emery than anyone else simply because I expect better from him unlike the likes of Mustafi. You field the same midfield like the one against Everton & you expect miracles? You then bring on Jenkinson & Mavropanos to play together in a backline that has Mustafi.
In short, we had no wingers, no midfield & a weak defense & yet we were expected to dominate this match.
I’m all for rotation, but damn, at least mix up the regulars & more experienced with the fringe players, especially in midfield & defense.
Mustafi either has no brain or refuses to use it. You can’t be that bad. My 5yr old nephew saw what he did on the 2nd goal & asked me “Is that allowed?” The look on his face was just priceless.
all this was emey´s fault…. what a poor team selection… Jekinson?¡ Elneny?¡…. Shameful..
Seems to me
We have the exact same problem as United. We have a team where lots of so called high profile players just don’t want it bad enough. Pulling on an Arsenal or United shirt should bring out the best in players but too many are found wanting. Our defence woes really show up when you don’t have our strongest pairings combinations of Holding, Socrates and Koscienly, then along with Monreal, Bellerin, and Maiteland-Nile’s and some good days from Kolasinc the rest we should move on quickly maybe look at some of the younger ones coming through they can’t play as badly as some of our first team.
This is not a true reflection on the game!! Ozil deserves at the very least a six, he’s one of two players who did well. The other is Leno. Iwobi a 5??? you must be on something!! he offered little to nothing!! better bring Saka to the team now!!! Guendouzi a 5?? for what?? running around like a headless chicken. He was our worst player bar Mustafi!! I dont get all the hype around his. I think ave seen him play nicely in only three games. one was at ot!!
Lacazette- he really tried but again wasted golden opportunity. Which I believe if he was confident enough he should be burying that and not missing the ball in close range! Again he and Aubameyang have missed alot of sitters this season but I think they have been worldclass. Lacazette should score more than he has!! And I really love Auba!! Yes he’s not the most technically gifted player, but he does what he has best!! Should definitely win the Golden boot.