Arsenal succumbed to a 1-0 loss to Manchester City in a blow to their goal of ending this season inside the top four.
It was a game the Gunners simply couldn’t pick the right lock against a City side that is the most in-form team in Europe right now. Here is the Arsenal player ratings.
Bernd Leno – 6
Could do nothing about the goal and looked assured for much of the game.
Hector Bellerin – 5
With Sterling, he was always going to have his work cut out, but he should have done more when joining the attack.
Rob Holding – 5
He knows he should have done better to stop City’s goal and dealt with the attacks well after that mistake.
Pablo Mari – 6
He is the better of the centre backs and showed his leadership skill by constantly communicating with other players.
Kieran Tierney – 5
Doesn’t look fully fit and had a torrid time dealing with Riyad Mahrez.
Mohamed Elneny – 5
Failed to take his chance in the absence of Thomas Partey. All he does is make a simple pass that any amateur could make.
Granit Xhaka – 6
Can be trusted with possession, but Arsenal needed more penetrating balls.
Martin Odegaard – 5
Perhaps his toughest match as an Arsenal player and he failed to build on his Benfica performance.
Nicolas Pepe – 5
Made runs that were ignored, tried to force the issue at times, but this wasn’t a day to remember for him.
Bukayo Saka – 7
A rare positive as usual and troubled City’s defence more than any other Arsenal player, but it wasn’t enough to change the course of the game.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – 4
Arsenal fans will still be waiting for him to get into the game. Simply not good enough for a player with the armband.
Substitutes
Alexandre Lacazette – 5
He probably would have offered more than Auba if he started, but he did nothing after coming on.
Emile Smith Rowe – 5
Struggled to create anything against a City side that defended confidently.
David Luiz – 5
Subbed on for a concussed Holding and helped to keep the scores respectable.
Dani Ceballos – N/A
Ratings from Ime
Saka does not deserve 7, he tried yes, but misplaced many passes and decision making lacked, i think he is fatigued.
Elneny was better than Xhaka 100%,in fact I would say was thr best Arsenal player on the pitch.
In a game like this his simple passes are better than saka, Tierney, pepe, bellerin constaly giving the ball away
Arteta a 3.
Late substitutions
No Martanelli
Pepe of right
No style of play
bingo
Statistically Holding was our best player by a mile.
Statistically, Mustafi was better than Van Dijk!
You could blame him for the goal, but still was our best defender. I´m fed up with this Mari praise, he has played like 4 games for all and i’m yet to watch him do something important. He looks like an average defender and nothing more, i can’t understand why would arteta pick this guy for such an important match, he should be behind every other CB we have right now.
Also why pick Odegaard that has not proved he is fit-for-purpose, when you have ESR that has been our most creative player this season.
Baffling choices by Arteta.
How many points do you think we could pick up from our next 5 games?
v Leicester
v Burnley
v Spurs
v W/H
v Liverpool
I am interested to get the Arteta fan boys answer this.
9 points
I see 4 losses glaring there.
15 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂 seriously
Hopefully zero points from these fixtures and the board will finally see we are going nowhere under Arteta and do the right thing and sack him!!
No fan should ever want there team to lose let alone 5 games on the bounce 🤯
I’d say 5-7 points
I say 3-5
3 points and I am hoping 3 draws against Burnley, Spuds & ‘Appy ‘Ammers.
Realistically we can pick up 4 points in our next 5 games, may be a maximum of 5.With the way we are losing games now, we will barely pass the 40 points mark at the end of the season
Apart from being culpable for the goal Holding had a good game and was a cut above Mari who is far too slow to be effective in the EPL I’m afraid.
I think you would find Tierney was capable of that goal mate ,not sure what holding could do about that ,unless he knew that would be put on a sixpence for sterling .
Just surprised you didn’t blame Bellerin .
Holding should have prevented Stirling from getting on the ball.
Guarding space rather than marking the man.
I agree, holding did have a good game.I believe Emile should have started in the no 10 position but cause that’s where he’s more effective. Martinelli should have been given a chance because he’s very quick on counter and needs only one touch, hr clicks well with saka and Emile because they are players who need just one touch to make a difference
Good ratings. I predicted a 3-0 win for Arsenal as I thought City might be over confident. But Leicester’s win narrowed the gap to just 7 points so that probably tightened Citys resolve. On that note other results come into play in a very significant way. Spurs and Villa lost again so now we are in a battle with Chelsea Westham Liverpool Spurs and Everton for a top 7 finish. Significantly we must play all these teams yet. Leicester is close to top 4 so will be tough and we have to play them. We also play Fulham Newcastle and Brighton who are fighting relegation. Burnley who are safe and Sheffield Utd and WBA who are going down are probably our only easy games. On the positive Man U and Leicester are likely to make top for so may not take the Europa League seriously so Tottenham and Arsenal can both save their respective seasons by winning the Europa League. Unai tried to gain CL from both the league and the EL but just missed both. Mikel should not make that mistake and prioritize the EL.
I think we must use the term Battle very loosely.
If I had to pick I would agree with saka ,and followed by Tierney ,even though he was awful in the first 10 mins and was to blame in just staring at Marez for the goal ,but came into the game after the damage was done .
Overall a terrible performance ,but we go again ,let’s hope they pick back up .
The entire team looked dis-interested, uninspired and unprepared at the start of the game – almost a complete mirror image of the AV game. This is a coaching matter that MUST be addressed before it’s too late. There is absolutely no excuse for a professional team not to be ready and focused at the start of the game.
Poor would be my rating, for players and manager. Rather see them show some pride and guts and have a go at city.
Wouldn’t mind a 3-1 loss if they went at City, but no way in Hell will I praise yet another capitulation where the strategy was negative football content to keep the lose respectable.
Saw Cedric, Luiz, Bellerin smiling & having a good time after the match. Disguting from that lot, 11 losses, more losses than wins and they are smiling and carrying on not fussed.
That’s what overpaid content footballers look like not fearing competition or being replaced or moved on.
That mentality is exactly why we are where we are.
not a bad ratings overall. in big matches our psychology seems to be very bad with misplace passes here and there and loss of possesion
Once again, whoever writes this rubbish was not watching the game. Yes Holding might have been at fault for the goal, but Bellerin was standing looking at Sterling and made no move to get to him. Most of the first half Holding was trying to mark De Bruyne, often moving up into midfield. Mari was staying back, and therefore looked more defensive. Kierney got forward but did little with his crosses. Yes, he looked like he was lacking fitness. Pepe looked like a Giraffe on roller skates at times. Odegaard was off the pace for most of the game. If I was Arteta I would be more worried about not losing Saka than trying to buy Odegaard. Saka is the ONLY valuable commodity Arsenal have!!
Arteta needs to go
Tactically, he doesn’t cut it at all and his not getting any better…
I blame Arteta more than anyone or the board for hiring him. Arteta isn’t bad but not of top standard
No, the board must be blamed too for giving him that lengthy contract. Why didn’t they just offer a standard 2 year deal? What did Arteta say to get a contract nearly double Emery’s?
granit xhaka can be trusted in possession … some people appear to have zero grasp of the game … he is utterly uncomfortable in possession struggles to control a ball knocked to him at anything other than a trickle and assiduously avoids finding space to receive the ball … along with elneny they provided nothing in the midfield other than a bit of defensive runabout so his performance was a generous 4 with elneny aubemayang pepe and bellerin … half the team is lower half of the table standard and with better options on the bench so is the manager … only radically invasive surgery in the
summer will get the club back on track
Everyone was pretty poor. Holding was the best player and he was at fault for the goal. What does that say about this team? Saka tried and it wasn’t happening. Dont know why he was on the left either. Odegaard was irrelevant, Pepe the same. Auba was not irrelevant, he was just bad. What a shocking decline. I have always stuck by Elneny being a one note player and I’ve got no reason to believe otherwise. I’ve got no idea what Arteta was trying to achieve with this setup. Clearly wasn’t a win. This squad looks as aimless as AW’s final years. As aimless as under Emery. Perhaps it’s time for a real manager and enough of these games.
Also, if i was the manager and watching a game like this and i looked at my bench, who would I put on to breathe life and energy into this game? It’s a crime Martinelli keeps getting past over. Even from my raggedly armchair I can pick better subs than Arteta.
👍👍
Where s Arteta’s rating?No more than 2,this guy must go,fast….I never saw a footballing style so negative-is any team in PL playing uglier than we do?
I have said it times without number on this forum, with Mikel arteta arsenal is going no where and will continue to go down and down untill it becomes history .what were u expecting from someone who has never managed a championship club or league one club before then u expect him to come to a top club like arsenal and start doing wonders. Dream on fans
Time for Martinelli to start ahead of Auba and Laca. The lineup was good except Auba. Should be Martinelli. We would have won the game.
No one deserved seven. Next to Leno
Holding was our best player, yet he was mostly responsible for their goal. Figure that one out. I’m with the bad losers on this one. It’s not that Arsenal lost but the fact that the team was not set up to win both in terms of motivation and personell. City cruised. Guardiola sat back ,counted down the clock and set his mind on the next game. Maybe even preparing for the press interview and how to let his mate Arteta down easy. Totally chill control.
I predicted we would end the season with 15 defeats. So far 11 are already in, 4 more to go:
Leicester- L
Tottenham(If Mourinho stays)- L
Westham/Liverpool- L
Everton/Chelsea- L
I really wonder what the board was thinking awarding Arteta a 3 and 1/2 year contract. Firing him is going to be really expensive, probably more than the £17M it cost to “accept Wenger’s resignation”.
QD
Could do with a little help, Any chance predicting what the euro numbers are this week.
Not happy with some of the play as we are to passive in games but overall we are heading in the right direction
Rome wasn’t but in a day and we have to understand and accept MA is still learning his trade at at the expense of getting game plans wrong
Good Day All
I am totally in agreement on Holding, was mostly responsible for the goal but did a hell of a job in defense after the goal. He was probably our best player on the day. There were moments in the game that it looks like we could get back in the game buy it wasn’t enough, but I am not surprised that we lost this game.
Hey Man/City were toying with us we did not see the ball very often in the first half bit better in the second but not threating a run out for city
How can Leno be absolved from blame for the goal, he was rooted to the line and did not command his area, as usual? He should have been off his line and attacking the ball. Yes Holding was ball watching (but still man of the match for me) but Tierney and Bellerin were also culpable. We were a mess in the opening 15 minutes but did get back into the game. We move on now to Benfica and Leicester.
Arteta has to go, i can’t understand his team selection, his subs are brought on too late and are wrong, his tactics are so boring, I am watching arsenal since 1979 and have to say I don’t enjoy watching them anymore, get rid of arteta and get brendan Rodgers….
Wasn’t the best nor the worst. I think most of us have seen the more worse Arsenal before and lost by more than 3 goals.
Just that Man City have one advantage their winning n confidence mentality n the early goal probably shocked the Arsenal players by surprise. N Pep as cunning as ever.
The weakness for Arsenal right now all well know is killing off n getting goals from our inconsistent strikers department. Aub is still very inconsistent and not as confident as his usual self in the past. This will take time how much time we do not know.
Gabriel is the only good striker we have now but we do not have any more backup or rotational strikers.
Saka is still doing his magic u know he’s not rambo.
Rob is not bad just abit unlucky his early goal mistake other than that it’s pretty good def. Martin not his usual as being overrun close by Man city more confident midfielders. Xhaka is staying cool as usual. Elmney as a backup player it’s fine perhaps Arsenal do not have enough quality depth players. Arsenal need more quality players which Arsenal can’t match with City. Emile need rest. Lots of matches coming. I wish I can transfer 150m to Arsenal from my football manager 2021.
This season I still believe we are only good for Top 10. At best 8.
Next season am sure Top 4 to 6 if we get the right players in n out.
MA knows pep very well and i think as game progressed we were giving them trouble.
We got into good positions but the end product was not good.
For those who were blaming xhaka and eleneny,they were superb in what they were asked to do.Kept it simple and progressed the ball into the attacking front,you know as someone said the opposition cant score if they dont have the ball.
Xhaka actually created some good chances as well.
What pep did to surprise MA was to use like a 100 false 9s.OMG everyone apart from the 2 CBs were false 9s😏