Arsenal left it late against Norwich yesterday, and didn’t play particularly well, but three points are three points. How did the players rate? Find out below!
Lukas Fabianski: 7/10 – Relatively untroubled most of the game, had no chance with the goal but made a crucial save just after we’d gone ahead to keep us in front.
Bacary Sagna: 6/10 – Had a running battle with Snodgrass, got kicked about, but he was the one who got a yellow card.
Thomas Vermaelen: 6/10 – Solid return to the side, not a great deal more to say
Laurent Koscielny: 6/10 – See above but take away the part about a return to the side
Kieran Gibbs: 6/10 – Re-insert the bit about returning to the side, but have more to say: his crossing was horrible after getting into good positions. Needs to work on that.
Mikel Arteta: 7/10 – Cool as a cucumber for the penalty (especially when Grant Holt was trying to eat the cucumber), metronomic passing in the midfield.
Aaron Ramsey: 8/10 – Worked his hole off for the entire 90 minutes, spent his time in midfield closing them down high up the pitch, then slotted in at right back as we chased the game. His renaissance is great to see.
Santi Cazorla: 6/10 – He has games like this, and the one against West Brom, where he falls slightly below his own high standards, before following it up with a stonker (the pass for Gervinho in the first half was beautiful though). Watch out Everton.
Jack Wilshere: 4/10 – Like when you put your hand up in class and call the teacher ‘mum’, I think we’d be better off never mentioning this again.
Gervinho: 6/10 – A bit more like the old Gervinho, unfortunately, but put in a fantastic cross which no Arsenal player could be arsed attacking.
Olivier Giroud: 6/10 – Some nice link up play, but looked a bit sluggish in general terms. Seemed determined to claim the goal, and why not?
Subs:
Theo Walcott: 6.5/10 – His pace saw Norwich drop deep, gets an assist for the Podolski goal, should have had a penalty.
Lukas Podolski: 7/10 – Hit the bar, scored the goal which made the game safe, had a good impact when coming on.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: 7/10 – Great running to create Arsenal’s second, a short but very important cameo.
Bonus Falstaffian award:
Grant Holt: Fat out of 10, the only elephant seal currently playing top flight football
You’d get a slight impression you don’t agree with Grant Holt his belief that Eng-ur-Land would have done better if he was in the team!!!!!!
Magic Moment.Arsenal leading.Ball out of play in corner.TW delays game.Bunn runs out goes ballistic.
You reap what you sow for 90 minutes of time wasting.Get back to your turnips
I wish one of the lads had taunted Holt and their keeper in a manner much like the Dutch Skunk did last year against Newcastle.
I notices that too! Most satisfying moment of the game!
The last 2 games the ox have come as a super sub, he deservs a starting place!
And the last start (away at swensea) he hited the post twice.
At whose expense? Boy is still young! Hes got loads of time. If he has a good impact when he comes on, we should use him as such until he becomes consistent. We often complain that we have no squad depth that can change a game, beg to differ, team is starting to look good. If we can hold them all this summer, get in another quality player or two, ill be happy. Personally think kos deserves 7/10 and I’m glad Ramsey was being recognised as a 8. Not been to the games in a while but was amazed at… Read more »
fantastic win and everyone played well, except…Gervinho of course. There is no surprise his best performance came against a horrible reading side where an injured walcott could of produced the same output. I am very happy walcott the ox and poldi performed and this should phase out the diseasterous Gervinho. I know many will disagree but might as well treat the virus Gervinho before it affects our results like it almost did. Up the arsenal !
i don’t think gervinho was that bad. yes, there was that moment http://i.minus.com/i7LTm7uyKdkOa.gif where he should have done better but it was a good run and at this speed the ball was hard to control. on the other hand podolski missed the ball twice in front of the goal and theo stumbled it over the sideline twice but nobody complains about that… based on the performance yesterday for me it’s wilshere who needs a bit more time to recover from his injury. so if rosicky is not fit, i’d like to see the ox on the wing and cazorla in… Read more »
gervinho needs games and support, it can be frustrating, but it was a similar case with theo not so long ago. hes got pace, got skill to take on players, and more importantly the confidence to as he seems to try it quite often. he just needs a good 2-3 month spell to get over this jittery patch/habit hes got.
I’m not sure what position he played in when he came on, but it looked like he was playing as a CM to me. I hope we’ll see more games soon with him in that position. He’s tenacious, hungry, and has a great shot. Although it will be difficult for him to start since I believe Poldi and Ramsey should start. Walcott will start for sure, since it’s pretty clear playing weekly is in his contract since every time he comes off or doesn’t start he makes a face or comes up with some news thing about how he’s at… Read more »
At least it’s better Than Nasri who seems a little too comfortable on the bench! Haha
I think he could well deserve to take Gervinho’s place, but Theo would argue against that. IMO we got to go with Theo and Poldoski for the next, as harsh as it is on the other 2. They are our most prolific and experienced, plus there is no question of form after seeing their impact from the bench.
Morning/Good-day: Lukas Fabianski run after the 3rd goal went in was a joy to watch… 7/10 points for making me laugh out loud at the stadium
Totally agree.Fabianski is looking less miserable.Must have learnt enthusiasm from Chessers.Its a Pole in goal thing
Neil Warnock and Tony Gale should be eating humble pie this morning – but Grant Holt has (heh, you know where I’m going)
I beg differ: they should be eating a pie but the pie should made of shit.
Each others’ shit
Grant holt should eat them both and do us all a favour. After that, Grant holt should too be put down.
Smothered in gravy made from hippo jizz and infected snot
Can we add bits of his teammates as well? Chunks of Johnson, with a sprinkling of Snodgrass, topped off with a well toasted Bunn.
Grant Holt has already eaten that as well.
I wish Poldi were given another chance at CF. Especially seeing that the crosses are not coming in for giroud.
The crosses aren’t coming in because Poldi is not playing on the wing to bring in the crosses. And can we finally stop playing Carzola on the wing! its costing us proper width. He’s not a traditional winger and he barely ever stays on the wings, constantly drifting in leaving the wing all to the left back. Giroud had his best spell when both Poldi and Theo were on the wings. I.e. proper wingers. So please return Carzola to the CAM role and let him perform his magic there.
what are you going about? Arsenal these days never really use regular proper winger. Poldi is not a winger. We get our width from our full backs.
I don’t get it… People are upset with the way our team has been laid out in the last few weeks? Did no one notice we’re winning the way we’re set up?
I would like to see Cazorla more central too. Drop Wilshire behind him, he is our engine not our creative outlet. I don’t have a problem with him on the wing if we are short out there but we have the options. It seems we keep trying to accommodate Wilshire as an attacking midfielder when clearly right now its not his best position.
I would do this:
Poldi/Gervinho — Cazorla/Rosicky — Theo/Ox
—————- Wilshire/Ramsey – Arteta/Ramsey ————
But, Ramsey can’t play with Ramsey.
Grant holt said he couldn’t understand why he hasn’t got an England call up yet. There’s nothing else I can add to make this even more ridiculous.
He also believes he ought to have been made Pope and that he ought to have been the first man in space.
I think you just succeeded in making it more ridiculous…lol
NASA hasn’t a rocket that could lift him off the ground.
I would not expect it to understand.
Thuggish, greedy, neanderthal…
To be fair to the lad he’d fit right in.
Leave Grant Holt alone , he is one handsome man * growl*
Leave Grant Holt alone , he ate one handsome man * growl *. There, fixed it for you
Only one?
Yeh. The rest were well ugly.
Hmm.. I think Gervinho deserved a lower score? Maybe a 5.5 perhaps?
Although Vermaelen didn’t have too much to do, there were still a couple of iffy moments, certainly didn’t convince me that he should start ahead of Mertesacker.
He won all his battles and aerial duels. I thought he had a solid game but looked a bit edgy at the start. This is understandable with the criticism he has been getting.
I still believe he and Kos the boss are the most talented and will be the best partnership. TV5 just needs to learn the positional discipline as Kos has had to.
Giroud should get a 7. Gervinho, a 5. Other than that, spot on in my opinion.
I have to agree with this. While not being spectacular, Giroud scored or set up each of our 3 goals, set up Poldi to hit the crossbar, and hit the crossbar himself, not sure what else you’d want from a forward.
This is a bit obvious but, a goal or two?
Giroud is always a very useful player to have on the pitch, simply due to his height. I know people don’t like the idea of Arsenal having a target man, but he gives our play an added dimension. Besides, there’s far more to him than that. I for one have been very impressed.
He is the type of striker that you must play to his strengths. For some its hard to understand he would never have the quick feet of a Bergkamp or Henry. He makes up for this in other areas of his game and gives us another dimension, we just need another option up there.
Poldi could well come good there if given the chance.
I lost count of how many times Giroud lost the ball, he’s not terrible, but I simply don’t think he should be a starter
Grant hole is a championship quality player. The ref was league 1 quality. The Commentator’s intellect was chav quality.
Ps Ramsey rules.
Sagna gets booked.Ref just speaks to Norwich players.He gave us virtually nothing.Even the pen was by the linesman.He never looked round to see Bunn wasting time every goal and free kick.He was a very poor ref
they gave us a corner, which should have been a goal kick. and that corner led to a penalty. and they gave us a goal where theo was offside in the buildup… and all by the same linesman.
What really wound me up is that the commentator I was watching (I think it was sky sports?) said that the penalty shouldn’t have been given. Then the other commentator said that it was actually a foul; the first commentator agreed but his reasoning for it not being deserving of a penalty was because “they let most of them go”. Chavy beyond comprehension.
I found how it funny how Moyes and others slated the linesman for calling it because he was too far away! If you see a penalty, give it, what is there to be annoyed about.
These pundits need to learn to leave their agendas aside.
Good to see Rambo almost back to the player we remember, just need to start getting those important goals, He likes it v Man U 😉
I absolutely hate to see some fans who constantly try to criticise a player going through a lean patch. Tv5 has become the new punching bag even though he has shown that he is a very capable defender in the past. I find it disgusting that many want him sold to the cuntalans. These are the same people who had written off rosisky and ramsey.
Thought TV did ok, but think Mertesacker should come straight back(one match ban??) against Everton to combat the airial threat of Fellanni.
Agreed,
Yep, only one match, professional foul, not violent conduct
just because the BFG is big, it doesn’t mean he’s a good header. in fact i think TV is better in the air. but still, i agree, mertesacker should come straight back to the team, because vermaelen and koscielny are too much alike in their style of play. both like to attack the ball and against everton i’d prefer the BFG, who stays back and makes that vital interceptions.
Emirates ground staff 10/10 for having to deal with the repercussions of Holt’s rhinoceros-like legs thundering up and down the pitch for 96 minutes.
I actually think light gets distorted around him by his gravitational pull.
He’s certainly been playing “wide” this season. Hehe.
Pub player who spends most of his time in one by the looks.
Couldn’t believe the commentators didn’t think that was a penalty, I must have missed the rule change where you could drag down players by the shirt…
Maybe it only counts if they are British players dragging down foreigners….
nono, don’t you know? the rules are different for Arsenal players: unless a leg is broken, we shouldn’t get a penalty in our favour.
but not if the leg-breaker is “not that kind of player”. in that case the arsenal player has to apologise for putting his stupid leg into a well timed tackle.
Broken legs we get, penalties for them……?
Remind me when that happened.
Tony Pulis is confused by the rules too.
I think we should be thanking Ruddy for getting injured, it seems Holt can’t concentrate on our goal when theres a Bunn the other end of the pitch. 😉
“If it turns like a cart horse and it looks like a carthorse, it’s probably Grant Holt”
Allow me:”It turns like a cart horse, it looks like a cart horse. Don’t let this deceive you – it is Grant Holt” 😉
Hear hear, you do a great disservice to the cart horse.
A good end of season run for Arsenal. However we trail Champions Manchester United by twenty points.
I wonder if other teams have people like you? ‘Ok, we may have won the league this season, but we didn’t do anything special before the 90’s and we once lost the premier league to blackburn’. ‘Ok, we may have won the league in the fastest ever time, we may be on the way to the treble, and we may be the best team in the world, but we got humiliated by Arsenal and only beat them on goal difference, hence this season has been absolutely terrible’. ‘Ok, you may have loads of money, loads of money and loads of… Read more »
Although to be fair to Nasri he’s got a hot girlfriend as well.
https://twitter.com/thegoonerfamily/status/314121860830863360/photo/1
Wow. Disturbing!
I bet you’re the life and soul of a party.
“Yes we’re all laughing now, but ultimately each breath takes us a step closer to our inevitable death…”
There are several things to addressed about that at our club over the summer, defiantly.
But the points deficit hasn’t always been down to the 11 vs 11 players on the pitch.
Other things are going on, even an idiot like Manchini has eventually spotted it.
But on the positive side, none of our first team are leaving this summer, the youths look to have some players demanding to be called into the squad next season and we have money for a couple of squad enhancements.
And that’s not me being rose tinted.
Why don’t you go have sex with manunited.
Chav, you’re bang on. It’s why I stopped visiting these boards for a time. You either had those pouring vitriol on players or those attacking anyone that dared criticise Wenger.
Vermaelen has been shite this season no doubt and it was good to see him dropped but that’s all. He loves the club so that’s good enough for me. Equally, it’s good to see Ramsey come back to some form, he’s looking more and more confident and I just hope he can start to deliver against the bigger teams.
Still Rosicky <3
Agreed with your entire post, but just want to add, Ramsey delivered against Bayern Munich at the Allianz, they don’t really get bigger than that 😉
While giroud wasn’t particularly pleasant to watch (eh), in spite of a comment here yesterday I think he deserves higher rating: hit the crossbar, won the penalty for the first, scored the second and had a touch for theo for the third, making him involved in a very important manner for all goals – that’s as much as you can wish for me thinks.
i think there should be AW’s rating today too. he deserves that for great, quick (as for him) changes and for bringing Aaron Ramsey back to life. last season he was a wreck mentally and struggled with his fitness since the middle of the season, getting abuse from Arsenal fans. Wenger stick to him, played him in different positions, rotated him and put a huge amount of faith in him. now we’re looking at the outcome of this. Ramsey is probably in the best form since the leg break, the fittest player of AFC, great warrior on the pitch, fully… Read more »
Ramsey, Jenkinson, Wilshere and Chamberlain all have great stamina. These guys are going to be immense over the coming seasons. The future’s bright, the futures Red and White*!
*not to be confused with Red and White holdings.
You forgot Gibbs
Ramsey is the new Parlour
Rhymney Raider anyone??
I’d prefer him to be the new Edu.
Probably the most under rated player we ever had. And he was an invincible!
Noting against the Romford pele, loved him. Still do.
“Wilshere – Like when you put your hand up in class and call the teacher ‘mum’, I think we’d be better off never mentioning this again” LOL! Yep I don’t think I’ve ever seen wilshere that bad in quite a while. All that said you’ll remember he was coming back from an injury and is only 21 years old! then you’ll feel alright again. MOTM was totally Ramsey, He played so energetically, (chasing lost causes, getting stuck in e.t.c) he never looked tired, and put in some brilliant interceptions to boot. A-holes still arguing it wasn’t a penalty, well it… Read more »
And I thought I was the only one who experienced the awkward and humiliating moment when you call your teacher ‘mom’.I felt like stuffing my Head up my arse.
Grant Holt wouldn’t eat a cucumber.
Grant Holt wouldn’t not eat a cucumber.
he might if you deep fry it
Yep, one of his 5 a day.
Grant Holt has 10 a day
I’m a pitch side flag bearer for the club and a massive gooner obviously, I thought some you might like the video I took of Arteta’s penalty yesterday.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Smkp3sDWXs&feature=youtu.be
Lovely
very nice
Arsene Wenger, Steve Bould, Carl Jenkinson’s reactions to the 3rd goal: 10
Stoke fans not very happy about Grecian 2000’s penalty.
Don’t know whether to laugh. Or wet myself laughing.
Seems to be some aggro in the crowd but being hushed up on my radio link.
Can someone do the maths? Do we have to see the little Dutch boy collect his 20pieces at the Grove?
Please DB10 no. The thought is sickening.
[…] 来源：[Arseblog News] […]
Ramsey gets an 8 when we’re doing absolutely nothing for 85 minutes and on the verge of losing to a team in the midst of a miserable run.
Poldi, Ox, and Walcott come on and completely change the quality of our play, which, up to that point, was terrible. They win us a crucial match in all of 5-10 minutes and they are rated lower than Ramsey.
Mind-numbing charity for Ramsey, and ridiculous!
KC What match did you watch?
Do you know what midfielders do to control the pace of a game, keep the ball, win it back, keep the point of the attack moving around? AR16 does and AW coaches him to keep improving.
Must make you sick seeing Arsenal players dong well in a game.
You should write to your MP about this terrible injustice.
Balance mate. I don’t ask for perfection…don’t believe in in fact. And don’t think I’m always right…and will admit being wrong when I am. But balance my friend.
This was pretty stupid when you think about the quality of the team’s play and Ramsey’s in particular. Even if, as is the case with so many, you are desperate for him to shed his identity as an under-performer at the club, he shouldn’t be lauded at the expense of the guys who won us a critical match and a critical 3 points.
Nuf Sed…
KC
April 14, 2013 at 3:58 pm
Laugh at him….go on everyone laugh at him….. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha #FOOLOOL
Double Canister, I have a question for you…If Ramsey was such a world class genius in the game yesterday? Why were we lacking in creativity and losing to a relegation threatened team that hadn’t won in 15 matches? I know it wasn’t all down to Ramsey’s performance, but surely you have to understand football enough to know that nobody for us stood out. The players that stood out were Podolski, Walcott, and Ox. They saved the rest of the players a major embarrassment and they won us three crucial points. I want to give credit where credit is due (Ox,… Read more »
Thanks KC An easy one to answer. We play with 3 midfielders – any combination of Arteta, Jack, Santi, Ramsey, Rosiskey and poor old Abu. Sometimes Coquelin for back up. You might have noticed yesterday that Jack was not at his best after coming back from his most recent knock. Arteta was holding the back line together and doing a reasonable job of it – remember their goal came from a dive that was behind Gibbs. Santi was playing in a more forward position and I think he didn’t have a great day but that’s for another discussion.It’s not often… Read more »
Hey Tony Pulis, how’s that £120,000,000.00 more you spent that Wenger working out for you? Careful opening the post tomorrow, there’s a P45 in it you mook! hand delivered by Michael Owen. Clever old wrap around the leg penalty claim by Grecian 2000. If that was us, you all know the rest…. Just seen the Geordies on sky after the match, Jez I don’t want to be going there on the last day if they are still needing something from our game, bring your flack jackets if any of you have away tickets. Or maybe it’s just archive footage of… Read more »
The comment above is absolute gibberish.
You tend to forget that it was Ramsey that put pressure on the Norwich player that won us the corner (even if it wasn’t the right call) that got us the penalty. He chased down lost causes and closed down Norwich players all match, making tackles and intercepting in our half then popping up further up the pitch to help things moving forward. Its also funny to say that Ramsey is an under performer when his stats say otherwise, his defensive nous is great. He has the highest tackle success rate in the PL, at 90.3%. No other Arsenal player… Read more »
Ha Ha, I knew Blogs would cream himself over Ramsey’s performance! Credit where it’s due as Ramsey had a great game and I thought he was our best player as well. He’s made some big strides as he’s simplified his game and his engine and versatality is very Flamini esque. For me, this was Ramsey’s best performance since Man City away at the beginning of the season. Jack’s rating by Blogs was totally correct and fair as well, but it was too be expected being out so long. I think he should still start against Everton if he’s not feeling… Read more »
Just noticed that Walcotts assist was him losing control of the ball as re bumped the defender. Poldi was shouting for it but as soon as theo spilled it to him, theo was demanding it back. Just thought it was interesting.
Last time I said this I was yelled at since he was technically a winger for Malaga, but I do think Cazorla becomes a lot more anonymous when playing wide. I think he really needs to play in the centre to get the most out of him
Ramsey MOTM :))
He has some engine on him. Ramsey + Wilshire will kill it next year, no IFs or BUTs about it.
Step aside, Nicklas! Grant Holt now fully deserves the “Greatest Striker That Ever Lived” title.
This might have been said already, but Ramsey’s don’t stop attitude lead to the first goal. How many players give up on that ball going out? Seems to me his desire convinced the Line Ref he beat Snodgrass to the ball and gave us a corner.
Rambo’s chasing lost causes won us that match – you chase enough of them and one of them will go your way. That’s the sign of a true class act. He’s the unsung hero of our team I think.