Monday, December 23, 2024

Howlers For Monreal And Mertesacker – Player Ratings: Arsenal 3-3 Anderlecht

Arsenal capitulated last night, there isn’t really another word for losing a game at home, 3-0 up with 30 minutes to go, against a team like Anderlecht.

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To be fair to the Belgian side, they’ve played well against us twice and definitely deserved to pick up a point from the two fixtures. Arsenal were very fluent and exciting in attack for 60 minutes, but it fizzled out as soon as Anderlecht got their first. We let the fans rate the players this week.

Wojciech Szczęsny – 5.7
Had nothing to do for most of the game. Made a couple of little errors that were almost punished.

Calum Chambers – 6.1
Chambers isn’t really to blame for this defensive shambles, perhaps he should have been playing at centre back?

Per Mertesacker – 3.3
Lost the header to concede the final goal, what were both the centre backs doing for Anderlecht’s first? I don’t know but it wasn’t good.

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Nacho Monreal – 3.3
This highlighted why he is not a centre back. The Anderlecht forward played for the penalty all day and Monreal gave it to him. Turning point in the game.

Kieran Gibbs – 5.8
Better than the centre back, but didn’t have a lot to do all night. Cross for the third came from his side of the pitch but probably Podolski’s fault.

Aaron Ramsey – 3.9
Oh Ramsey of old, please come back! No real contribution all game, just a few stray passes.

Mikel Arteta – 6.1 (Replaced by Mathieu Flamini)
Only noticed his importance after Flamini came on and the whole team fell apart. Better than most, but not amazing from Arteta.

Santi Cazorla – 4.7
What’s happened Santi? Barely noticed any offensive or defensive contribution last night. He kept things ticking but that’s it. Not enough from a winger at home against Anderlecht.

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Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – 7.6 (Replaced by Tomas Rosicky)
Made some excellent runs, very energetic performance and wanted to make things happen. His goal was brilliant and showed us a flash of his potential.

Alexis Sanchez – 8 – Man of the Match (again)
He must be so annoyed with his teammates after this performance. The Chilean was once again brilliant and scored a quality goal as well as being dangerous all night.

Want your say? Rate the players here

Danny Welbeck – 5.7 (Replaced by Lukas Podolski)
Was close to scoring on a couple of occasions but couldn’t get ahead of his marker. He will have to work on that, but I think a 5.7 rating from the fans is a bit harsh. He worked hard all night and was one of our better players for me.

 

Subs

Lukas Podolski (on 80) – N/A

Mathieu Flamini– 5
He came on at 3-0 up, we drew 3-3.

Tomas Rosicky (on 80) – N/A

The truth is, if we had kept Laurent Koscielny fit, we would have won that game comfortably. It’s gutting, but top spot was always unlikely, now we must make sure we qualify by picking up points in our final two games.

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