Arsenal’s unbeaten run was extended to 16 games thanks to a late equaliser from Henrikh Mkhitaryan, but the 1-1 draw with Wolves definitely feels like points dropped. Arsenal were well below par in both halves, not just the first, and had Bernd Leno to thank for keeping them in it with some excellent saves.
Read the Arsenal 0-0 Sporting match report
Ratings
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Disappointed with Auba today. He’s in the team to do one thing and one thing only.
And that one thing is not to play LW.
Yes, but he’s not strong through the middle either. Auba needs space to run into and he’s not at his best against packed defences, and most teams will sit deep against us and try to counter. He’s been best as a super sub when he’s brought on against tiring opposition and spaces are opening up.
So basically you’re saying he’s Walcott v2.0?
its not mandatory to play him you know.
He did score goals from LW, not only once or twice. It is just not his night…
Lol, a reality check. We aren’t too far away from Arsene’s Arsenal after all.
but the unbeaten run continues, so not the end of the world.
Well, there has been progress, but it’s early days. Emery needs better players — a good central defender (to replace Mustafi) for starters.
Better wingers please. Iwobi is a good player but far from convinced he is top 4 starting material.
I still wanna see him as a CM before I can judge. Also we know for some reason he’s only good on the left.
“Preferential Vision” perhaps.
He’s good when he can cut in and take on defenders. It also allows him to shape a shot better which always makes defending more difficult than the winger you know is just going to run down the wing and boot a cross.
I feel we also need a box to box or just someone to carry it out of midfield. The gaps between midfield and attack were far too big today.
we have the best B2B midfielder in our team, but we dont play him. Its criminal the way Ramsey has been treated.
That is hilarious. You have found a way to credit Ramsey for our goal. ?????
I didn’t make it up. It actually happened. He made a really good run, his shot was saved and then we got a corner from which we scored!
We scored so all is well but Ramsay also stopped running when he could maybe have recovered the ball
Don’t worry Blog,i’m a Ramsey fan too.. i understand your point of view
The Ramsey general criticism is inane, there was so much to criticize (including our shape as well as starters) especially in the first half. Moreover, Emery’s substitutions deserve some attention. Why not bring on Ramsey for Iwobi at halftime?
What’s that then? A pre pre pre assist? Why stop there? Why not give credit to the person who passed to him for his shot which got saved that led to the corner we scored from?
That person was Guendouzi. Your dislike and bias against Mustafi is becoming a bit irrational now.
It’s not irrational at all. It’s because he’s not very good as his performances illustrate. If he was playing 10/10 every week and I didn’t like him, that would be irrational.
But aren’t the ratings for the actual game? Not the previous performances and weeks? I’m not fan of Mustafi at all, I think he needs to go, but the rating on THIS GAME and he certainly wasn’t worse than Holding, arguably better even. But it’s the fact you seemingly can’t rate him objectively on the sole game without referencing Mustafi’s previous performance, and a spurious correlation between our generally poor defensive showing and him being “the constant” even though he wasn’t really at fault at this game shows your becoming a tad impartial. Mustafi is basically the opposite of Ramsey… Read more »
Becoming, lol.
Indeed me Narrage.
“Won some tackles, made some clearances.” Actually, a lot of them; he was very good, certainly better than Holding. I don’t recall any Wolves’ chances coming because of his play. It is absolutely fair to say that in too many games he makes one or two horrible errors, usually of positioning or a momentary switching off. It is nonsense not to see that when he does not do that, he is very good. I don’t know whether he will continue the errors; I am not optimistic. But he played well against Wolves.
Read above what I said about Mustafi. I didn’t know that people had reacted already
Yeah, like Mustafi gets every single time a lower score than Holding. Mustafi is (so far) the best Centre Back in Premiere League (see Sky Sports) leading Van Dick etc, but apparently it’s not even the best defender some Arsenal fans. He throws his body on the line just to block a shot at our goal but that’s seen as a bad thing because it’s Mustafi. The bias against the guy it’s beyond belief. Holding gets turned by strikers twice or three times a match (but has his defensive partners to thank for covering his arse), but somehow manages to… Read more »
Hahaha thats exactly what I said
Of course he has, he even questioned the Guendouzi substitution despite it being his pass that gave Ramsey a chance he didn’t score… Also blaming Mustafi for doing little wrong beyond a few ambitious passes. I only come to see the ratings for the voters opinions..
Guendozi is not Arsenal Midfield Quality. Sorry.
I agree with Blogs about Guendouzi–I would have like to see Mkhitaryan or Ramsey to add to the attack then.
You’re surprised, Fleeting?
arseblog: Fan of Arsenal, Aaron Ramsey and most everything to do with Aaron Ramsey.
Be understandable if Arron was a decent footballer though.
Yeah it’s always a bit of fun tongue in cheek humor to see Andrews take on Ramsey game.
Usually he picks out the credible thinks most over look. But this time I think it’s the wrong sort of cheeks Bloggs 😉
😉
I know. It’s weird.
Think from now on I’m gonna give Ramsey 10 for every game just to see how much piss it boils!
Don’t forget to disable options 1-9 on the user submitted ones too.
Why poke a dragon when u can urinate on its face!
That’s the best advice I ever got from my dear old mother.
All the piss
Yeah. Isn’t that what you have been doing for so long? Just slate the players that actually care and praise the ones don’t particularly bother turning up (ie Ramsey)?
Not that you’ve got any responsibility of rating players on one of the most read websites from Arsenal Fans…
Rant over. Coat for me!
People are either trolling with the Ramsey hate or there are genuine knuckle dragging Neanderthals on here
Or, unlike yourself, understand the game of football.
Mhikitaryan’s 2-footedness got us out of tight spots and he also scored… nah, he was terrible.
Ramsey got in teammate’s ways and slowed passing down qhen we needed to shift quickly… yh, heas the reason we scored
Blogs your love dir ramseyis u real. ???
1/10 for Emery. Didn’t learn from Palace or Sporting games.
So no credit to the opposition who took points from Man City and Man Utd?
The opposition that got trashed by Spuds, you mean? Why not give credit to Palace as well? Keep giving credit to other teams when we play this poorly if you want, but don’t complain if the gap between us and fourth place becomes too wide.
Got thrashed by Spurs? Perhaps you didn’t see the game. We performed as good as any other team has done against Wolves this season. We were just unlucky at times too. I’ve always known this would be tricky and it was only this difficult because they scored early, albeit from an error deep in our half. And I don’t get why having the keeper to thank for the draw is a bad thing. He’s just another one of the 11players we put out there. If he performs well, credit the manager as you would if any other member of the… Read more »
yeah..he kind of chickened out….went for a nothing team.. neither attacking nor defensive….
Your love for Ramsey os unreal
Mkhitaryan has a lower rating than Ramsey, even though he nicked us a point… give me a break
Yes, but you’re forgetting that “Mkhitaryan is an enigma” and “Ramsey never hides”.
Also, Holding was not better than Mustafi today, regardless of how annoying Mustafi is.
Yeh, holding was poor. All the danger came down his side or in behind him. He wasn’t great for their goal either.. should at least make an effort to stop the cross.
Holding’s lack of speed was on show a few times
Most center halves will lack speed against Costa or Adama. Do you even watch this league?
You don’t think it had anything to do with Wolves having a party down our left side? I mean, who wouldn’t take advantage of Kolasinac and Auba defensively?
Some of it, but then we had Bellerin and nobody else on the other side and Mustafi wasn’t half as exposed as Holding was..
But Bellerin is playing that side better than anyone on our left since Nacho threw a cog. Big difference.
The threat came from his side because Costa plays on his side. Costa is their threat. Mendy and Shaw both suffered when City and United faced Wolves.
Mustafi was horrendous as usual. Ozil was ineffectual when it mattered again, against a resolute side. It’s funny he more paid, when you watch City’s Silva or the other Silva or Mahrez or De Bruyne. These guys will look to create something against Wolves at home.
You mean when City also drew 1-1 with Wolves
He’s obsessed with Ramsey. Keeps trying to polish a turd
Accidentally. He was rubbish when he came on.
I agree he was poor even though I think criticism of him is often unduly harsh.. But while it was an accidental goal it was a great cross that Auba should have headed home.
I think this is why he gives you the option to, not only, vote yourself, but also to hide his own ratings……. He’s just a man for christ sake, you don’t have to agree.
Ozil is like the lottery. Once in a year you win something so can keep playing and losing
We drew
He’s been poor since the Leicester game tbh. It’s either 9s or 5s with him at the moment, you expect more from what is meant to be our best player.
And more often 5’s
He was really good last week against Liverpool, even if he didn’t do anything obviously spectacular.
I thought he was so-so, failed to slip in Auba and Laca a number of times, and often taking the easy/safe option on the ball when the game was there for the taking. Again, for 350k a week you expect more.
There must be some Ozil lovers out there who just can’t see through his obvious inconsistency.
Love is blind, as they say.
That was the most uninspired performance of the year and thanks to Leno we finished with a point…
On to the break which hopefuly will bring back fresh legs and minds. I cannot prevent myself to think that we missed Nacho in this game :-/
When will he be back?
Finally some reason. Yeah it wasn’t the best game. But 16 games unbeaten. Fought till the end. Up there with the others. who would have thought?
Definitely missed Nacho, Kola was terrible today. I know Xhaka is getting the stick for leaving the pass for their goal but the pass was so bad he probably thought it couldn’t be for him. Kola was keen to get forward but reticent to get back and cover when he lost it up there (one second half moment really summed that up).
We’ve gone from the team who keep winning to the one which hasn’t won for 4 games and only one of those 4 was a top quality opponent.
Two of those games featured the reserves.
So our first team got two draws against top opposition.
No, it wasn’t a difficult pass at all. Xhaka’s reaction was so odd that I thought someone had given Xhaka a shout to leave it. It was like he played a very good dummy–but there was no one behind him.
Agree. Watch it again. Xhaka actually pulls his foot back. Dummy to Cavaliero(?) is how it turned out.
“It was his movement in the box which created a chance that led to the corner that then led to the goal.”
Look, I’m a big a fan of Ramsey personally, but this is ridiculous. Surely trolling.
?
Ozil is like playing with 10 men home or away! And this is our captain/leader do me favour get rid of this overhyped waste of space
He’s just way too inconsistent. Disappointing.
Consistently inconsistent
Not a waste of space but certainly a waste of the salary he commands
Oh man, that was one of those games reminiscent of the latter Wenger days. Utterly exhausting to watch. What are your guys’ thoughts on Ozil captaining? IMO, on days where all is ticking, it’s going to be fine but most days against any PL side you’ll require some grind and true leadership. Seeing every single player get frustrated after any misplaced pass and then the ridiculous time wasting and the ref not giving a shit is when you need your captain to be stepping in and communicating with the ref throughout any BS. Frustrating day where thre was a lot… Read more »
A great club like Arsenal should not have captain like Ozil! Not fit to clean Tony Adams boots
Maybe an accidental goal is exactly what mki needs to get his confidence up…
It was a great delivery. Auba probably should have headed it home.
In fairness, we have seen these goals before, and against good keepers. The keeper must wait because he must assume that someone, attacker or defender, will get a head on it.
Ramsey, an Arsenal hero who broke our barren spell, the man who has 2 cup winning goals to his name sits on the bench with Arsenal 1-0. Granit Xhaka stays on the pitch for 90 mins after giving away a goal that summarised everything he does far too wrong far too often. Guendouzi, 19 year old of league 2 pedigree, comes off the before Ramsey in this game. Ramsey doesn’t get a new contract and will more than likely leave the club on a free while Xhaka is signed till 20-fucking-23. There’s a lot of things wrong with this picture.
Not really.
Maybe the biggest thing wrong with this picture is that your biases are showing! Pretty sad and fickle bunch of fans we are. We are on a 16 game unbeaten run and yet still that’s not good enough for some people. Emery has been in charge just a few months and yet people are expecting miracles. We aren’t winning the League and we will have to work hard to get top 4….FACT!!!
Who said anything about Emery? I’m upset the way a players career at the club is winding down and your talking about backing the manager. What kind of mental gymnastics are you doing to leap to these conclusions? I like Emery and what he’s been doing and I’m happy with our season so far, we’re doing far better than I expected. I’m not happy with how Ramsey’s season is going and wish for a reality where Ramsey was the one staying and Xhaka was leaving because he isn’t half the player Ramsey is. Unfortunately I think this is a decision… Read more »
I’m upset as well, but no one forced him to hold the club over the barrel, ask for ridiculous salary, and postpone signing a new deal for months and months and months.
Well it worked for Ozil so I don’t blame him for trying!
Liking Ramsey and disliking Xhaka is fair game and all. I mean it’s opinion and we’re all entitled to it. But to compare the two as an either-or is not respecting the shape of the team and the fact that their roles are entirely different.
I was expecting a “Emery Out” at the end of your comment, the way you were going at it.
Ramsey slows everything down and is a bit rubbish really. You and Bloggs seem to be wearing the same Ramsey tinted glasses. The only sad thing about Ramsey leaving is that we won’t get much money for him, hopefully we can get something in January, he’s not worth keeping until the summer.
that is strange….anyone know if guendozi and emery have some relationship?
Yeah, Emery appreciates talents.
yup….but which?
I hope Rob holding doesn’t have nightmares after what Adama Traore did. I remember Montero at Swansea did a similar thing to Chambers and he was never the same after.
Speaking of Adama Traore, why on earth can’t Aubaymeyang scare opposition players with his quick speed, like that boy does everytime he gets the ball down and runs.
we dont play direct football like that – everything has to go through 8 players, with back heels, step overs before somebody remembers they need try to create a scoring opportunity, by which time the opposition are nice packed in front of their goal.
We’re the possession team more often than not – playing against a low block makes it almost impossible for our speed to do much for us (this is at least partially responsible for the perceived failure of Theo Walcott at Arsenal; I believe he’d have been devastating on the counter). Adama Traore plays for Wolves, so he tends not to have this problem. Even against the lesser teams in this league, they pretty much only ever use him as a late impact sub.
Bingo. You’ll notice they never played a high line when we gained possession. There was never space between their back line and keeper to play Auba into. Auba is great on the counter, and late arrivals to put the final ball away. I don’t recall any opportunities like that in this match. In my opinion Auba is for certain opposition (Like Liverpool who play high line and open, end-to-end games) and for super subs with us. Just like Theo, he’s wasted against teams that hold shape and sit deep. We, on the other hand, always play a high line making… Read more »
Emphasis on “perceived” when it comes to Walcott. His goals and assists record stacks up well against other top wingers, but yes he’d have been better in a team that moved the ball faster. Being the possession team doesn’t mean you can’t play with speed though, Barca and Man City manage it. But you need players that are speedy, technically gifted, good in tight spaces and work very hard to win the ball back. A rare combination.
Traore is in the top 3 dribblers in the league, I believe (along with Zaha and Hazard).
Auba, for all his speed, cannot dribble.
I understand he has just come back from injury without a run of games, but Kolasinac is really beginning to worry Me. While decent going forward, his defensive positioning still leaves a lot to be desired. Today he offered little width down the flank and left us exposed at the back, especially on the counter. How many times did we see Rob Holding cover for him at left back? He also seems to have lost a bit of that intimidating physical presence that he had initially and looks to be a shadow of the player that joined us. I hope… Read more »
Bellerin has similar issues but gets let off because he doesn’t get support from the man jnfront of him, but it’s the same for Kolasinac too
Agreed. He also passes very sloppily. You can just see the frustration from his teammates as the pass almost always breaks the momentum of the receiver. It’s always a little bit off the mark.
Then defensively he’s just shit.
It was all round bad performance but I feel that the most blame should take Emery. In the first half we were letting many chances but we were also dangerous in the final third. They play 3 at the back so bringing on Guendouzi for Iwobi was a really really bad decision. We were too narrow. With Aubameyang cutting inside, Ozil being a roaming wide playmaker we didn’t have anyone on the wing. It was easy to defend for them. Even the starting lineup up was wrong in my opinion. Now that Welbeck is injured we had all fire power… Read more »
The problem for Ozil is that he often recycles the ball again and again, waiting for an opportunity to spot a good move. For this, he needs to be on the ball frequently, but that doesn’t happen often enough if others are trying overly-ambitious passes, losing the possession.
So true, and all game I kept willing the players to just keep possession better till something opened up but we seemed to want that final ball so bad we rushed it a lot.
We can pretty much count on leaking one or two every time. Our failure today was the failure to do goals. Got a lucky one. We have to to better than that until we bring in better defenders.
The most worrying thing about this game was the number of 1 on 1s they had v Leno, who was outstanding. We need to be better at the back, it’s been that way all season.
Emery switched to a 4-3-1-2 (or maybe even a diamond) at halftime. Auba and Laca were both inside the box until we made that double change with 15 minutes to go after which we played 4-2-3-1 with Xhaka at left back again. But we looked terrible regardless the system today.
Sorry to say but Lazazette reminds me of a bad version of Thierry henry when he was back on loan from the mls. Did he have a shot at goal all game? If one of out strikers have to be left on the wing it should be him. Why not go for 4 – 4 – 2 or is that forbidden at arsenal?
‘Look, if I have a triangle in midfield – Claude Makelele behind and two others just in front – I will always have an advantage against a pure 4-4-2 where the central midfielders are side by side. That’s because I will always have an extra man. It starts with Makelele, who is between the lines. If nobody comes to him he can see the whole pitch and has time. If he gets closed down it means one of the two other central midfielders is open. If they are closed down and the other team’s wingers come inside to help, it… Read more »
Wenger out!
Kolasinac cost us the game really. All his touches were terrible- gave the ball away at least 7 times. Crossed terribly., his pass for their goal was astray. I guess he’s out of form coming back from injury.. Maitland niles would’ve done better but I understand his inclusion… Still poor. Like playing with 10 men
Not Xhaka who handed them their only goal?
Unsatisfying. No real penetration from any attacking players today. Wolves had an organized and resolute shape, we were hurt by a lack of width and willingness to beat players on the dribble.
4-4-2 anyone?
Some one get on that miracle knee cure so we can have Monreal back.
Strange old game. We didn’t play particularly poorly but we were not sharp and rather tentative at times going forward. 1) Leno – Probably MOTM for us. Kept us in it for most parts. Not that Wolves particularly troubled us besides the goal and Traore on the break twice late on (the one that hit the bar and post). 2) Bellerin – Couldn’t find the killer final past even if he did foray down the right flank on a number of occasions. A couple of good opportunities fell to him one of which again to his lesser gifted left foot.… Read more »
On the plus side we get another chance to pull our collective fingers out.
Well done that man Leno.
Should be a busy transfer window for the club in January. It’s sooooooo obvious that we need another centre half, or at least a centre half that actually knows how to play in central defence.
There were some very disappointing individual performances yesterday…
It seems that we’ve tentatively solved the issue of conceding so many goals but it’s come at the expense of scoring ourselves!
We have gone from a team who were scoring 4 goals a game to a team that has only scored 4 in the last four fixtures.
With the way that the schedule’s shaping up after this international break, we NEED to discover our scoring touch again….. fast.
It was the first time I was ever able to go to an Arsenal match, I was hoping to celebrate the occasion, but instead the team let me down. In the first half there was no intent to attack, there were so beautiful channels to pass into yet the back four just passed it around. They were shy in possession where they could send through balls forward, yet took too many risks when they were closed down by the opposition. Kolasinac’s performance was abysmal, he’s finally proven that he’s not Arsenal material, but he wouldn’t even cut it in a… Read more »
Laca isn’t getting crticism he deserves,and I don’t know why…He scored some screamers this season but he is missing chances in tight matches
Emery seems to be failing any half-decent test he faces. 1 point against the top 6, and that too against a depleted liverpool who went on to get tonked by red star belgrade.
Half decent teams like Palace or Wolves ended up dominating us.
And he picks a fight with Ramsey and seems intent on teaching Ozil some kind of lesson.
Weird. He picked a fight with Neymar too in PSG.
It’s funny how looking back I remember hearing all this xhaka rumor and went online to watch his highlights VS other teams and right away I could tell this guy was not the real deal.. I honestly didn’t want us to sign him yet we did after he came he scored a few screamers and fans got carried now the dust has settled he’s still capable of scoring screamers but yet he’s still the same xhaka in those highlights he hasn’t progressed or improved in anyway everything you’re seeing of xhaka now was what he was before he signed we… Read more »
LOL. When you leave school, you’re going to be a very good comedian
People genuinely losing their shit over Ramsey being given 1/1.5 points higher than they would have given him.
Firstly, it’s one man’s opinion on a non-impartial website; these ratings are not a direct link to the player’s wages/contracts etc so it is ok!
Secondly, if this is an issue that causes you so much upset perhaps a new sport, or even a new website could put you at peace again…