Bournemouth earned a shock 2-0 win against Arsenal this evening. Here are the player ratings and they are not impressive.
David Raya – 5.0
He was not helped much by his defence, and Evanilson committed him for the penalty but he should have done better..
Ben White – 6.0
He did his job, but Bournemouth attackers kept him too busy at the back to attack.
William Saliba – 4.0
He took one for the team, but it was a costly red card that destroyed the team’s confidence and game plan.
Gabriel – 6.0
It was not one of his best games, but he had to play without his preferred partner for much of the match.
Riccardo Calafiori – 6.5
Probably Arsenal’s best defender on the night, but could do little for either goal.
Mikel Merino – 6.0
OK debut, and he made some important runs, but he became limited after the red card.
Thomas Partey – 6.5
He was kept busy by Bournemouth’s midfield runners, but it could have been worse if he had not protected the defence as he did.
Declan Rice – 7.0
Arsenal’s best player of the match. He defended well when he had to, and he was the most likely to create a goal in the game.
Leandro Trossard – 4.5
His mistake forced Saliba into making the tackle for the red card and did not really recover from that mistake.
Kai Havertz – 5.0
Struggled without good service and could not make anything off scraps.
Raheem Sterling – 5.0
He was busy but unproductive until he was sacrificed following the red card.
Substitutes
Jakub Kiwior – 4.5
He came on after the red card and did well until his mistake cost Arsenal the second goal.
Gabriel Martinelli – 4.0
He should have scored but he missed moments before Bournemouth opened the scoring.
Ethan Nwaneri – N/A
Gabriel Jesus – N/A
Distraught and Flabbergasted, only the world class player and Calafiori turned up for the show.
‘ Nwaneri is a special talent that needs to trusted to start games ‘
What on earth is the gaffer waiting on to release the shackles off the kid.
That’s the issue
We make these players sound like they are better then they are
Dan am looking and thinking, in the absence of Odegaard, that should have provided us a glorious opportunity for the kid to play a much bigger part against the Saints and likewise the Cherries.
Not necessarily to start against Liverpool when they come to rown, the gaffer has to learn to trust a kid or two at some stage,
A few years ago Arsene Wenger had a set of three games.
A fairly difficult Prem game on a Saturday, a tough UCL game in mid week and another fairly difficult Prem game the following weekend!
Wenger put out a weakened side for the first game, and lost!
He put out his strongest side for the midweek UCL game and lost
He then put out a team of “what was left” the following weekend and lost!!
Arsenal have a 5 game series of tough matches coming up.
I fear Arteta put out a weakened team today against Bournemouth (with the future games in mind), And Lost.
I say weakened because he did not risk Martinelli or Saka from the start. They may both have knocks, but Arsenal needed to win this game, perhaps more than the upcoming UCL game!
I hope this result has not seriously impacted our chances of the Title, but it might just have!!!!
I would like to mention the lack of Pace in the team we put out against Bournemouth.
Without Saliba in defense and Martinelli and Saka up front, we looked markedly pedestrian.
I think this “lack of real pace”, more than any other, will prevent our winning the league this season!!!!!!
One other point this game highlighted is that Arteta brought in the the Shell of a once great player in Sterling.
City let him go, Chelsea let him go, and even England did not pick him.
But Arteta, who it appears was swayed by his performances of yesteryear rather than those of to day brought him on board.
I would rather the dynamic duo had gone down into the “Lower Divisions” and taken a chance on a young “Fast” forward, who could use his speed to at least put pressure on the opposing defenses!
I hope I am wrong in my assessment, but sadly I think I am correct, and our lack of real pace will come back and bite us this season
It’s obvious injuries are having an impact on our performances. Without Ode and Saka we just don’t have a cutting edge. I love Trossard but as a starter. He’s an impact sub. Overall it’s just a bad day at the office but we’re going to have to dig deep now with some big games coming up. Time to regroup and get on a good run again.
Havertz worked his socks off all game but it was a totally sloppy performance by the team. At least it’s only a one match ban for Saliba and not the usual three!
GB, totally agree with you regarding Havertz. He was up there with Rice as our best player last night imo. His work rate doesn’t seem to get the praise it should.
You are playing Bournemouth with a midfield of Partey/Rice/Merino. No creativity there. You don’t have Ødegaard & Saka, yet you won’t start Nwaneri.
You won’t play him against City or PSG. You won’t play him against Southampton or Leicester.
When exactly will the kid start???
He shouldn’t start
This is the issue with our fanbase
A player who has done nothing yet apparently should be starting ?
Dan,
You say he’s done nothing yet, well he won’t be able to do anything if he’s stuck on the bench game after game will he?.
Arteta has been here four 4 seasons now, and not one academy player has been given the chance to establish themselves.
You can’t do stuck on the bench.
What has saliba done apart from play well? Nwaneri has played well when given the chance – not sure I’d start him against Liverpool, but it’s worth considering against lower league teams, given our injury issues.
Possible epl champions, yeah right!
Pat,
I totally agree, they had there chance in the past two seasons.
Liverpool are the biggest threat to City now, not Arsenal.
Arsenal’s squad is weaker this season and smaller than last season.
So fellow Arsenal fans, get real and except that this squad is simply not good enough.
Stop dreaming, it’s the hope that kills you.
Nwaneri must start. Can someone tell Mr Mikel. How can he do something without being in the team. Let the young guy show what he’s made of. He has got raw talent and lot of potential.
Nwaneri is young and needs to be managed carefully. He will get his chances.
Get his chances when exactly? we are heavily depleted in his role and we are playing against bournemouth ffs, is this not the best opportunity to give the kid playing time rather than starting with 3 dms and no creativity in the team. It might be an entirely different scenario if we had our best wingers (saka etc) who can still offer creativity as we all know trossard is known for his goal scoring ability and sterling???
There are plenty of games left this season. He is a 17 year old still to establish himself even if he does have talent.
We had several experienced senior players start yesterday and that team should still have been strong enough to beat Bournemouth.
Neither Merino nor Rice are strictly defensive MFs, they are versatile players who can and have played different roles in their careers.
In a time like this, when our players are hit various injuries, one had expected Arteta to give playing time such players as Nwaneri and some good academy products. For crying out loud, this boy is better than most of our first team players. All needs is confidence by starting games.
The loss to Bournemouth is a reality check. Arsenal players should be more business like in matches and win the game asap. This lackadaisical approach to games as if nothing was at stake will definitely hunt them as the league progresses. Arteta should please, make prompt substitutions when a player is not performing. Waiting to 60-70 mins before making a change will definitely deny us the trophy at the end of the season
An unnecessary rant.
The first team that started was made up of senior international players including some who have won major trophies. None of them were played in a strange or unusual role.
It was a poor performance, prior to the red card as well as after it.
Arteta must address this discipline problem quickly. It’s only eight games into the season and Arsenal has three reds already. To put that into perspective, just in case anyone thinks it doesn’t matter so early on, only one EPL title winner in the last ten years had more than a total of two red cards across the whole season. That was Leicester back in 2015-16 who had three – the same total Arsenal has already, but with 30 games still to go!
So when I suggested to start the kid against the Saints, a certain fan wasn’t happy.
Now the question must be ask, in the absence of Odegaard, could we have done any worst starting the kid in either of our last two premier league fixtures?
Yes, we could have done worse.
I think trossard needed to start more centrally, as he’s been playing recently – this would have been at the expense of merino or partey yesterday, with martinelli probably starting on the left. That system has worked well enough in the absence of odegaard, however, if trossard still played as poorly as he did, it wouldn’t have worked – the only other player we have who can play as an advanced playmaker, really, is nwaneri, and he should have come on earlier.
The other big miss was saka – I don’t think sterling was bad, but the jury’s still out. I doubt saka would have saved us yesterday, particularly after the red card, but he doesn’t need much of the ball to make a difference, so you never know.
Also, I didn’t see the full match, but from what I did see, partey was our best player by far, and rice was fairly anonymous (dropped into the defence a lot to help with build up and did ok) – unless things changed dramatically in the period I missed, the ratings for those players don’t make much sense.
Arteta do not have guts to play academy players like Nwaneri, such decisions are hindering the progress of players and club. Also Arsenal players are lacking common sense and getting the Red cards. I mean what was logic behind stopping the players which does not guarantee he will score and getting a definitely red card when only whole 1 hour is reaming in match. If opposition player has past you, let him run and you try to cover the distance and put pressure on him. The probability of goal was less than 50% but after taking Red card in 30 minute the probability of wining match by you is 2%. Even from 1-0 down position we could have made 1-2 if you have 11 players on pitch.
Our players are not learning anything.
The way some people defend some decisions don’t seize to amaze me.
We’ve tough games coming up every 3 days with Odegaard & Saka out and we aren’t playing Ethan against Southampton, instead we play 3 DMs and someone says he’ll get is chance, WHEN?