Dan’s Newcastle 0-1 Arsenal Player Ratings – Maitland-Niles MOTM

So Arsenal started the season with a perfect three points and an away clean sheet at Newcastle. Here are Dan’s first Player Ratings for a much-depleted Arsenal side….

Leno – 7
Didn’t have lots to do as the expected Newcastle push for an equaliser never came. Showed good composure in the air to calm his defence. A clean sheet shouldn’t be taken for granted; it took him till April to get one away from home last season.

Maitland Niles 9- MOTM
AMN is so good on the ball, he must be moved into midfield once Bellerin returns, given what he does on the ball is wasted as a makeshift full back. Anticipation and cross assisted our goal, but his pace also matched Toon’s subs and kept them at bay.

Chambers -7
He knows it’s now or never for his Arsenal career, already equalling our clean sheet record away from home last season can only help his cause. He also showed leadership qualities, often tidying up other mistakes. Doesn’t over play, when he needed to get rid of the ball, he did.

Sokratis- 7
Still not confident on the ball as much as Emery likes but it became the type of battle, he craves. His reading of the game meant the home side never moved him out of position or gave him reason to dive in.

Monreal – 6
Solid performance. He was smart enough to realise the couple of times he went forward, his lack of pace could have been exploited, so played it safe.

Xhaka – 7
Maybe because he wanted to look after an inexperienced midfield, he took fewer risks then he normally does with his range of passing. Especially in the second half he dictated the tempo of the game. Showed good game management to wind down the clock.

Guendouzi- 6
Can never question his work rate and was always on hand to tidy up when his more creative peers lost the ball, which is kind of his job. When he tried to show some skill himself, he was left red faced.

Willock. – 8
Was subbed to bring on experience to close out the game not because he did anything wrong. What you want to see from a youngster is do they have the personality to try and influence a game. Willock wasn’t just content to do the basic things but had the bravery to pick the difficult pass and drive at Newcastle.

Mkhitaryan -7
May have been guilty of trying to force things, perhaps knowing he’s not everyone s favourite cup of tea. Deserved credit for keep demanding the ball and growing into it.

Reiss Nelson -6
Unlike Willock didn’t show the personality to improvise. After a yellow card and a couple of wayward crosses I felt he went inwards.

Auba – 8
Missed his bromance with Lacazette having to play with back to goal, only getting on the other side of the defence a couple of times. After his well taken goal, showed a great footballing brain to hold up the ball.

Subs

Ceballos – 6 – Brought on at the ideal time. Perfect player to ask to come on and keep possession.

Pepe – 5
Smart sub as his pace could have caught the opposition on the break. That was assuming Newcastle would show more ambition 1-0 down but they kept 11 men behind the ball.

Martinelli Silva – 5
Was trusted to keep the ball in tight areas.

45 Comments

  1. Oh my…Dan’s ratings of Xhaka and Mkhi may incite a riot among fans who already branded those two as the worst footballers in the universe haha

  2. Mkhitaryan 4 No concentration, no vision, miss-passes constantly .
    Xhaka 5 Poor concentration, slow, Thug.

    1. Thought Mhikitararyan had a good overall game but for end product/final pass and that stupid, lazy and dangerous pass in the first half almost resulting a NUFC goal..

      As for Xhaka I tend to agree although maybe overall a 6- When is he ever going to stop giving away the ball in dangerous positions?!?

      1. You did not watch the game carefully enough.

        That was Ceballos that was giving balls away in dangerous positions. AMN did it once as well. We were lucky in all those cases that this was Bruce’s Newcastle. I don’t think any away game this season will have such pathetic hosts.

        My main gripe with those ratings is 9 for AMN. 9??? 9 means very close to perfect. AMN was overall quite good, but that’s a 7. Considering the goal we scored, maybe you can be generous with an 8, but 9 for AMN and then 6 for Monreal who was hardly much worse is ridiculous…

  3. Dan, you Willock 8 who at best was a 7 because to be honest he’s better in the CM. Then you give Xhaka 7 and give Guendouzi 6? What game did you watch? Guendouzi was the one controlling our midfield right from the moment the whistle went off, hell first 25 minutes I couldn’t see Xhaka, I wondered if he was playing CB. Guendouzi and Willock made our midfield click, they made Jonjo Shelvey worked his áss to the point he got tired immediately after the first half, and you give Guendouzi a six who also controlled the tempo for most of the time he was on the pitch?

    I thought that was the end of it, then I saw Mhki getting a 7. Like Really?
    Mhki and Xhaka 7 and Guendouzi a 6?
    SMH, what a joke

    1. Eddie

      I saw the same games as you. Matteo Guendouzi worked his socks off for us. He will get better. A big player.

    2. Mkhi lost possession 15 times, 5 times more than any other player.

      Mkhi – 4. He tried and ran a lot, but offered little else. Gets worse each time he’s on the pitch. Impossible to sell him, doubtful we could give him away at this point; albatross and nothing else.

  4. Its good to get the win and 3 points but I have to say we were mediocre in the first half where we could have been punished. Much better in the second half and a good result. I had my queries about the team selection as it definitely was not our best 11 but at the end of the day 3 points is 3 points, take them and look forward to the next game. Well done Arsenal!!!

  5. Giving Willock an 8 is the reason people say English footballers are overrated. I wouldn’t even give him a 7. He had an okay game. A 6 is alright. Guendouzi on the other hand deserves a 7. He was everywhere, doing all the right things.

    1. Agree. Aubameyang’s movements on the right side caused a lot of problems for Newcastle’s defense

    2. for seasons first away game without 5 or 6 of our top players we did a great job, hats off to Emery for taking a huge gamble with the uth not many managers would of done the same,

      regarding slating our players week and week out im dead against it must make them nervous beginning of their play, example Mhki his the type that looks like he needs encouragement rather then abuse, all players are different and react different to press and fans criticism and it don’t help if player’s have played out of position almost whole of the season

  6. Xhaka and Mkhitaryan received too high of a score in my opinion. They were arguably our weakest players. Guendouzi should get an extra point.

    But all in all a good result. I’ll take a clean sheet Win Away any day.

  7. logged onto the arsenal website some weeks back, to checked the arsenal squad list for the upcoming season and realised AMN isnt grouped among the defenders at arsenal…. so with belerin back, AMN might get a couple of games in the midfield position during cup games and europa leagues

  8. Didn’t we have the rating article for the Newcastle game already?

    justarsenal.com/arsenal-player-ratings-v-newcastle-one-player-gets-4-and-another-8/220280

    Maitland-Niles was great in attacking and his cross was very good too, but Aubameyang’s finishing was simply top notch

    1. That is because I did the one yesterday and the one today was a guest article from Dan, you are all invited t submit your own articles, especially when you disagree with one of ours.

    2. Not just the cross but that anticipation and interception of the ball along with sprinting a la Bellerin and looking up quickly just enough to view Auba’s position before the eventual cross to me won him the MOtM. Plus we mustn’t forget how he held his own against Maximin(the Newcastle sub) ?

  9. AMN MoM performance? Decent going forward but got done too easily not only once but two-three times…defensively weak!

    No for me Guendouzi was my MoM – energy and always trying to go forward and never gave ball away cheaply…hear that Xhaka and Mhikitaryan?

    As for Mhikitaryan I actually thought he had a decent game and worked well to protect AMN – although end product was conspicuous with its absence as too many times!

    Thumbs up for Willock – tempo seems no problem and looking good. As for Nelson I worry that tempo is just one step to high…hope not!

    Finally I seem to be only one not impressed with Cebellos cameo! Thought he did nothing with the ball and positionally a question mark – looked better organised while Willock was on the field!

    LOVED PEPEs SILKY FEET AND EXCITED ABOUT SEING HIM IN FULL FLOW!

  10. sometimes i dont know what games people are watching, and some on here would be saying pundits on skysports are biased… but even arsenal fans and supporters are biased..

    how would someone after watching the game yesterday, give mkhshit and xhaka a rating of 7… who are they trying to deceive?

    mkhi was totally awful both in position and in front of goal, xhaka was just xhaka, no creativity, never trying something new and a never ending sideways and backward passes.

    WILLOCK is better in than gundozi in every aspect of the game… and i expect him to make good progress than quendouzi

  11. i dont trust emery a bit, if his contract expires he should be off and that should be the last time time there would be a guendouzi and xhaka partnership, so much dilly dally and sideways passing, and i dont have a clue what the partern of play is all about, guendouzi never tries anything new and if he manages to get the ball into the opponents half, he gets confused and scared and then opts for the safer option which is another sideway pass

    1. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion .
      Mine is Guendouzi was awesome .Willock should hit the gym and partner him in that midfield .
      Nelson should improve he is a winger but had a good defensive outing .i was impressive he took corner kicks .
      Miki should be tried as 10 or be moved out of the club .
      Pepe and Cellebos were average i assume it is because its a cameo . they should know we are not the most patient fans .
      the defense wasnt bad .
      When i think Xhaka was bought for 35 million i question whoever scouted him . in my eyes he does what Elneny does with the occasional long range bullet which he hardly takes these days .i believe AMN can take his place when BEllerin becomes fit
      I am still a little confused if MArtenelli is a winger or striker , he has a lot of pace .I hope they can sneak Saka into this squad somehow .
      So far so good we are going from strength to strength ,its our first game

      1. Guendouzi had a good game but better teams can easily get around him just like we saw against Barca and against top teams last season. He relies on chasing the ball far too much and is easy to force out of position.

  12. Despite the fact that Miki was involved in our most sublime pieces of play, he was also the architect of some of our worst pieces. I don’t think he deserves a 7.

    Ceballos, we need to truthfully rate the game play and not the name of the player and to be honest, I don’t think ceballos should get more than a 5. Not only because he lost the ball a lot, but also he had a faster and more skilled forward line to feed that he failed to put through even once.

    Miki with his poor game found Auba twice at least.

    Fair game otherwise

  13. I cannot understand how Mkhitaryan gets a 7. He did absolutely nothing! Poor pass after poor pass. Unless we are saying he gets a 7 for that one long pass to Aubameyang that he almost scored? Is that why he got the 7? He should have got a 4 or less. Same case with Reiss Nelson, hopelessly youngster should go back on loan or be even better, be sold!

  14. Mere looking at this ratings I immediately saw that this was not given based on performance but on some biased personal reasons..
    Nelson 6 same as Guendozi did both players have same performances hell No

        1. Why say it then if your not going to.follow through with what you mean
          Keep hiding behind your key board

    1. Mika was the worst player on the pitch and that included the Newcastle lot. I thought mika was actually Newcastles best player as he kept passing to anyone in a black and white stripped shirt. At best a 3 out of 10 and that’s for having his shirt on the right way round. Xhaka wasn’t much better. Xhaka the non inspirational captain with another senseless booking 5 out of 10.
      Pea took his goal well, AMN good going forward, Guendozi opened play up but the way he pushes the ball in front of him he will get easily beaten by better players. Not a lot to do but Chambers/Sokratis/Leno were quite commanding.
      3 points and a run out for The newbies.

  15. Do find it a shame that in a game we won ,we as a fan base get angry that I’m not rating players a 4
    I don’t see in a game where Newcastle did nothing how or why we give a 4
    Happen to be reading a paper , Mkitaryan got a standard 6
    While we all have a right to an opinion can anyone find me a non Arsenal fan who gave him a 4?
    So to clarify a newspaper (neutral )give him a 6 but fans give him a 4 (and I have an agenda ?)

    1. @Dan. 65% of arsenal fans are plastic fans.How much noise do they at
      emarite stadium? Even the rival fans make louder noise. But when it comes to criticism of players, they are #1 in the world.I don’t know what % of fans on justarsenal, but even on bbc sports arsenal home page a read a lot of comments from gooners that are mostly critical.As an arsenal fan I read sky sports, bbc sports and espn sports( arsenal page )just to see some of the comments from arsenal fans.But trust me even the games we won, some fans either say we were lucky or the opposition was rubbish.

  16. All our players worked hard but unfortunately Mik and to a lesser extent ,Xhaka, kept giving the ball away.That said they both improved in the second half and to their credit they did not hide from the action.For me AMN and Chambers were our best players and young Willock has a great future as a box to box midfielder.He has more pace than Xhaka and Guendousi and his driving runs cause real problems for the opposition.While the result was better than the performance we certainly deserved the three points.Against Burnley we will face a physical, aerial battle against Barnes and Wood so it might be an ideal game for Luis to make his debut as he is superior to Socratis in the air.

  17. So Mhkitaryan gets a 7 for demanding the ball… really???? Wat about the many misplaced passes he made does he even think..?I Wonder I highly doubt it I mean how hard is it to pass the ball to someone wearing the same colour Jersey as you, thing is he keeps on getting worse with each game he plays.the last time I watched him I thought to myself he can’t get worse than dis and wouldn’t you know it he does.anyway @Dan be honest you didn’t watch the game yesterday mmm…coz theres no way you would give mhkitaryan a 7 I’m just glad youre not the coach lol….lol
    ********
    @Darealgooner

    1. Again name a paper , report outside of arsenal that gave him a 4 ?
      I.guess papers don’t watch the game either ?

    2. Mkhitarian needs to get it in his head that his priorities,duties to the team are to create scoring opportunities for his teammates first and then only then trying to come up with few goals himself then he would improve himself and his contributions to the team!

  18. Yeah, agree with most here. Mikhi had a poor game and should be a 5 max. Gave the ball away way too much, a lot of moves broke down around him and he missed a glaring chance. He may have worked hard but he was one of the worst players on the pitch when he was on the ball apart from maybe 1 or 2 passes, which unfortunately do not make up for the rest of them being wayward.

  19. I dont think Xhaka was as bad as people were saying yesterday.6/7 is fine. I do think Miki was horrible, though he did play a great pass to Auba in the first half, but that’s where his contribution somewhat ended. He also lost the ball 15 times in the first half. That is atrocious and this is why a lot of fans are surprised by the rating in the article.

  20. These ratings are all over the place! How on earth does Miki get a 7? A 7 means you played well. AMN did have a fantastic 2nd half, but a poor 1st half, so a 9 is way to high. Guendouzi was better than Xhaka, and Willock.

  21. It might sound unfair ADM had a good game but Auba won us the game and was a handful, sorry Auba deserves it,he got us the winning goal sand 3 points!!

  22. Admin,It is clear that fans will have many different marks but most firmly scorn your ludicrous 7 for Xhaka but only 6 for the far better Guendouzi. I scorn them both those silly marks. As for a 9 for A M-N, you must be watching him but seeing Henry or Bergkamp if you thought his perf worth a nine. Not in the world of sanity was his performance anywhere near a nine. SILLY HYPE AND TYPICAL FAN BIAS.

    1. BBC and the Sun gave AMN MoTM
      Gave no Arsenal player lower then 6
      So I don’t think it’s me with BIAS

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