Arsenal made it three wins from three in the Europa League this season after a brilliant Olivier Giroud goal five minutes from time gave us a 1-0 victory.
Arsene Wenger’s somewhat makeshift team struggled to find much to trouble Red Star Belgrade, but as it looked like time was running out, the wiles of Wilshere, Walcott and Giroud combined to ensure the three points came back to North London.
Here’s how the players rated.
I know people are very excited about Nelson (and I understand) but I’m really quite excited to see more of Joe willock. He looks tailor made for central midfield. Touch of the Diaby?
I am dissapointed chu yong parks (plural) didn’t play. Sometimes he did play well you now…
By the way who are those nameless and faceless blokes on the rating? Was it TGSTEL?
Seriously, i think aw should use debuchy more, at least as a genuine back up for bellerin…not anothet makeshift wrong-positioned right winger
True, debuchy talks a lot off the pitch. But his on pitch performance seldom disappoint.
I agree, I wonder if he’s just happy to be playing again now & will be a bit less restless?
I think a lot of Debuchy’s problem was wanting to play for someone, anyone, so he could be in the France team at the Euros. Now that he has no chance of being picked for the World Cup (Sidibe and about sixteen others are ahead of him), he could be a very high-quality squad player, if he stays fit.
Love having OG on the squad, if for nothing more than glorious aerobatic goals here and there and his chiseled chinbeard
Jack was MOTM.
Who would give thumbs down?
People who don’t agree would be my guess.
I would say rather it was Petr Cech..his saves kept us in the game..and they weren’t easy ones either
Please don’t play Elneny as CB anymore!! Saying that he nearly made a great assist for Red Star in the second half.
His last ditch tackle was spot on. But completely undone by his pass to the team in red n white…
To be fair we didn’t exactly have a lot of options left
But should we have sold Gabriel and relied instead on an unproven Holding?
And we even tried to sell Mustafi.
Its madness.
Wow, Revisionist history. Like huge majority thought selling Gabriel was the right move. Moving Nacho to CB role that was 6 Sr CB. How would Mustafi have helped today? It would have been the same problem regardless if Mustafi was sold or not.
He actually played fairly well, anticipated well, intercepted, nice passing–except for that one that could have cost the match. I guess that’s like a pilot who has a smooth flight except for crashing into the mountain. (Or a striker who is pretty poor for 85 minutes until he scores a brilliant goal to win the match; I’ve heard that can happen.)
Wishere really is a bit good
Wilshere is not too bad either
The past is the past, and I believe in supporting the players on our books. Having Debuchy back is a positive, given the lack of cover at RB or RWB. Wilshere is looking better every time he plays, and it was nice to see Sheaf and McGuane play with some confidence even if it was for a few minutes. Theo though…. I don’t see him being a new contract anytime soon. Maybe it’s time to part ways? Give him a testimonial, and let him go!
Debuchy just needs to play, he was very good for us before his injury.
Overall Debuchy is a fantastic defender, with great instincts, that all went to shit because of a terrible mind frame. Looks like Wenger managed to calm him down and get his head back into the game. Or maybe he did it himself. Either way, I don’t think he deserves to play ahead of our usual wingbacks, so long live Europa.
Let’s be fair, it went to shit because of a couple of unfortunate long-term injuries to start with. He certainly had some “motivational” issues when he couldn’t get back into the team, I give you that.
Debuchy is pretty decent at CB also
THAT GOAL THOUGH
You can see Jack works to the levels of the team around him. It looks like he is being coached to keep it simple and use his brilliance sparingly, which I guess is the pragmatic approach to his ankle strength.
Sloppy team play from a makeshift team but on the anniversary of the ground Wiltshire goal they produce another brilliant goal. Top stuff and bring Jack and even Nelson into the first team fold now Arsene.
*Grioud-wilshere
So close… 😉
Damn it hah
Ben Sheaf was a surprise, as im not sure ive heard of him before.
Saw the game on the worst tv signals ever. The longest it went on without freezing was maybe 2 minutes.
And with that, Im not fit to rate anything but my viewing experience. And that gets a solid 0,5/10.
Mate the game itself was dogshit. Really uneventful for the most part. The goal was amazing though. Wilsheres turn and wriggle through was out of this world.
Yeah I ate a full meal, had two pints, went to the bathroom, then watched the parts of the game that mattered, and it was nice.
I watched Ben Sheaf at the Durban U19 tournament, where he won player of the tournament. He’s a Ramsey clone, even wore number 16.
Are you sure the signal froze? That’s what the game looked like.
El neny played well considering he was out of position. Wilshire needs epl minutes to keep raising his level but he still looks short but what a piece of magic that was. That turn was criminal ??
Willock reminds me of Abe’s Odyssee main character. Mind blown*
Abe, you mean? I played all the way through that flippin’ game and realised that I must’ve missed something at some point that meant I didn’t escape the factory-thingy 🙁
Nelson and AMN suffering from this whole out of position “training”.
I can’t trust any form of training tats mainly born out of lack of options. Can’t even remember the last player such regular out of position training helped an Arsenal player. Diaby maybe? At a stretch.
Monreal
Ramsey, Wilshere–basically anyone needing more positional awareness
Henry?
van Persie
I think I had this conversation with Stilberto on one of his blog posts recently: the idea of players having set-in-stone fixed positions is more to do with playing football computer games than with real life. Every player switches flanks, vertical position, tactical ‘brief’ many times in a career or even season.
Thinking of recently retired Philipp Lahm – he played left back, right back, ‘number 6’ etc. It really does help positional awareness and tactical discipline. Which is something that’s criminally underrated in a modern player’s skillset.
Wilshere+Giroud = super goal! If anyone asks me why I support Arsenal, I will show them these moments. In spite of multiple indifferent and heartbreaking games, we manage to produce a gem during a slumber fest. These are the days that makes football worth watching. Truly a beautiful game.
Remember the goal against Norwich? Same duo.
Arseblog, which football match were you guys watching? Your ratings are surprising. It wasn’t one of Wilshere’s best game but you gave him 8 and gave Elneny 5 after a clean sheet? For Reiss Nelson to become a complete footballer in modern football, he has to learn the art of defending too. We are all most of the time on Ozil’s back having a go at him for his defensive frailties because as a young player he was not trained in that aspect of the game, So please let young man get that one also in his locker.
Which game were you watching? Wilshire was excellent and he will get better
Opinions, and all that.
I barely noticed Willock in the second half – not sure why you would rate him lower than Coquelin (who I thought had a good game). Probably because he gets credit for being young. I thought Nelson did well, but the other two youngsters were pretty anonymous throughout.
I thought AMN had a real problem with positioning in defending in the first half; his pace saved him a couple of times, but it might not against better teams. He was much sharper in that respect in the second half, which was a good sign.
I actually fell asleep in the second half. Just woke up and checked the score
That’s a first.
Dangerous as a wet paper towel roll tonight, but good on Jack for getting in 90 minutes.
Giroud, as usual, the best looking Frenchman in the team (sorry Wenger) would kill for those whiskers and that haircut if it didn’t peg me a right prat.
That goal definitely gave me a chubby
Tbh ben sheaf actually impressed me despite coming on for just 5mins before the ref blew the whistle. Seems like a great youngster and have a bright future
I thought I did pretty well personally
And came on twice!
There’s only two, there’s only two …
Thought Willock was good next to a rusty Coquelin. Although he was poor today i like the way Giroud and WIlshere link up.
Park Chu Yung was immense!
Were*
Surprised to see Jordi Osei-Tutu (academy defender, on the bench) has been given the no.3 shirt. Unusual for someone who’s never been on the senior team-sheet before (afaik). Anything in that?
So what happens Sunday, back to a team of ‘Troy Deeney’ cowards? 10 changes ?
Everton tried (& failed) to rough up Lyon today, they will surely do the same on Sunday, giving Wenger more to moan about.
Why mark Giroud down for?
I would rather he dies nothing and scored the match winning goal then run around and not score.
If anything he should be marked up. What a beauty.
We have flattered to deceive and rarely been serious title contenders but these goals forever live in the memory as a moment of the sublime.
The point is that we should expect a centre forward to be more involved in the game and also score goals. Giroud was so static. He also lost the ball numerous times and opportunities broke down as a result.
Cracking finish though.
Massive positive Debuchy playing decent.
Great to see Le Coq on the mend too.
Wilock continues to impress me. Really calm player.
Though Theo & HFB were having really poor games until the goal. Gotta give them credit though as they were integral for that goal and Wenger’s patience to stick with them paid off. Jack was great and Sunday might be too soon for him, but Prem mins will be coming soon for him. Manager doing a great job with his minutes so far. So great for our 3 young lads who started to get those valuable mins under their belt as well as the two subs who came on. That moment of brilliance made up for the rest of the… Read more »
Not an exciting evening, but it’s great seeing these young players clocking up the game time, without too many errors as well. Maitland-Niles seems to be taking one for the team by playing out of position, but I’m sure he’ll get a chance in the centre soon. I actually think he’s the closest one to making a break thru to more prem games, but we shall see.
Chuffed for Oli & Jack too, they’re showing themselves to be really professional at the moment, as is Cech, but that’s nothing new is it.
Do we really have a back up left back? Anyone else coming through the ranks? Why does Ainsley always play there? It’s obviously not his position. I pray it doesn’t affect his confidence later on if had a bad game playing there.
Nice win!
When we are this short on defenders I dont see any sense at all in using the 3-4-3 formation. Play 4-3-3 and only have one player out of position, ————Cech/Ospina Debuchy-Holding-Chambers/ElNeny-AMN —–Willock-Coq-Wilshere Walcott—-Giroud—-Nelson We’re top of a group full of minnows, we don’t need 3 centre halves, I’d even be up for playing DaSilva at left back and moving AMN into midfield. I don’t see the youngsters getting much out of these games when they’re playing out of position. AMN looks a bit limited as a player but even so, I feel for him. The two things he has done,… Read more »
I was going to give everyone except Cech and Jack half a star until that goal. The first two games were fun, this one not at all.