Arsenal’s top four chances took a significant hit this afternoon after a Phil Jagielka goal condemned Unai Emery’s side to a 1-0 defeat at Goodison Park.
There was plenty of time to turn things around, but a generally abysmal team performance meant that didn’t happen, and had Everton taken their second half chances the margin of defeat could have been even greater.
Read the Everton 1-0 Arsenal match report and see the goals here
Here’s how the players rated this evening.
Ratings
The ratings are now hidden by default until you vote, but if you just want to view the ratings and the comments, flick the switch at the top above Bernd Leno. Also, give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Probably unfair on Mustafi- he didnt have any major moments today and was far from the worst player on the pitch
He made some really nice tackles and interceptions but he also lost the header which led to their goal, played one really terrible pass straight to Calvert Lewin in our half while under no pressure, and the foul by the bench toward the end was poor.
Completely right. Not sure what the downvotes are for.
One poor pass at the end (far away from the worse offender in this regard), one late challenge (again had he been Sokratis the narrative would be he was getting stuck in and taking one for the team)
Otherwise some critical intercepts not mentioned and good distribution effort from the back, one which almost opened up for Lacazette.
I thought it was a good yellow card
he reacted very slowly before the goal, he was closest to Jagielka and could have stopped him
I actually thought he may have been our best outfield player today, though the competition was thin.
Ramsey was good for about 10 minutes in helping push them back and then looked spent and gave ball away numerous times.
This Mustafi blaming is starting to blind people into thinking an individual can be blamed for our defensive problems. I think fair analysis will make people realise that we are bad defensively as a team. The structure is wrong, the pressing is wrong and the quality is lacking overall. Making a single player the reference point of our problems takes away from he entire side’s shortcomings. There has only been analysis of how bad he has been, but we still don’t know how we are really supposed to be defending, from front to back. Tactically we are lacking, along with… Read more »
Which is what I have maintained for some time.
Flamini had the same treatment which blinded people from the real issues on hand.
Mustafi is the scapegoat and constantly under microscope. These people are looking out for the slightest fault to blame the season on him when others in the team get away with similar.
Never said he is the best defender by a country mile but he does some very good things that are never recognise.
His critics need to take a good look at themselves and more importantly watch the game again with less coloured eyes.
Devlin I actually agree with you 100%
If only everyone understood it as a system rather than single moments of error.
Lame
10 / 10 – Arsenal fulfilling the prophecy.
Player who was added to the team last minute on his first start at Goodison since the season opener who’s been linked with arsenal countlessly and hasn’t scored a goal in over two years… Scores.
To be fair, I figured that would be Walcott.
When we heard Jagielka was replacing Keane we thought that was great news. Ha! Never underestimate the fates coming to bite you in the arse….
I feel less anger about Mustafi, because you wrote MOOOSTAAAFIIIII, now I’m chill
I sure hope our captain for the day wasn’t throwing his coat at Emery. A real lapse in judgement if so. I hate to say it, but I feel as if he would be real world class if his mentality was stronger. He has world class skill; that’s for sure.
No idea why we’re making him captain. He whines all day to refs.
Sad effort from everyone today.
If Talent + Application = Skill
There is a fundamental flaw with your final statement.
I don’t get this. Why in theee fuck would he be throwing his coat at Emery when what was going on was the opposing coach was out of his technical area barging into ours trying to get Mustafi a red card?
It’s not that hard to figure out. He was throwing it at the Everton bench for being a bunch of whining gits. I appreciated it because it proves that he honestly does give a fuck.
Don’t listen to those morons talking at you from the television and assess the situation for yourselves. They’re just trying to sell a narrative.
There called Pundits, because Gobshites was taken. There job is to create narrative to sell so you talk about the game. Create Drama where none is and people will talk about ‘the game on skysports last night’.
Dull.
Ps.: Felt sorry for Laca today. He was kicked high and low the entire game.
If some one actually makes individual highlights of Ozils every touch from today game, you’ll see so many times during the game he dropped deep to get the ball, shift a couple of players and make a pass further up the pitch but it invariably came back or possession was lost subsequently. This was more disappointing as he combines well with mikhi usually but they both played on opposite wings so never really present in the same parts of the pitch to combine. Everton pressed well, suffocated the midfield. Guendouzi did not link up play between defense and front three.… Read more »
Yeah, knew we were in trouble once Guendouzi got booked early. He’s good at stepping into challenges and winning the ball to start the attack and that was taken out of his game early. I was hoping he would be yanked at the half for Ramsey instead of Kolasinac.
It sounds like you watched the game. I thought Ozil showed all the energy and enterprise he is always being criticised about. But, of course, there is a negative hidden there: In general, we win games when Ozil plays centrally, and especially with three other attacking players on the pitch–not when he needs to play further back to collect the ball.
Saw a player rating from a rag where they gave Mustafi and Ozil 2 ???? Even Guen got double that.Journalists!! ??
Don’t tell blogs though. He busy massaging Ramsey ??
Brilliant. Blogs: Fan of Aaron Ramsey and most everything to do with Aaron Ramsey.
Mustafi won most (8) aerial duels today (tied with DCL) as well as tackles (4, tied with Gueye). I can definitely think of some blocks and interceptions as well, can’t find stats behind it unfortunately though. Also there was the long ball to Laca which was pretty much more than what our midfield created for him in 90 minutes.
Not sure about the “MOOOSTAAAFIIIII” moments today. With so many other points to talk about, he’s not really the one to bash right now.
Ok, found the numbers: 5 cleareances (2nd most after Sokratis, tied with Zouma). 0 interceptions apparently. Block numbers unavailable.
Maybe Blogs means that late yellow-card tackle–the kind of cynical but effective foul that is praised when it is committed by anyone else.
I think the issue is not along the line of poor tackles getting beaten easily and passing not to the opponent, but a player who has an opponent already ripping through the back of them.
I hate that i have to give elneny a rating as high as 0.5. Worst arsenal player in a long long time. We were never going to score with him starting
I can think of worse players. But, you are on to something to the degree that he offers virtually nothing going forward. Not a bad fifth or sixth choice central midfielder though.
Thought he was better than guendouzi tbh
He’s never scored, never provided an assist, and aside from the odd pass yesterday, only ever passes sideways and backwards. Tragic player. Shouldnt be a sub at exeter let alone starting for arsenal
“He’s never scored”
He has actually, twice. One of which was that beautiful equaliser against Barcelona of course. Voted ‘Arsenal Goal of the Year 2016’ no less.
That was awful, terrible starting midfield, but to find a positive Iwobi was good when he came on.
Telling that I rated our best field player at only a 6. (Ramsey) Ozil struggled away from home once again. He wasn’t by any means our only problem but it does reinforce the fact that you need your biggest stars to carry you at times especially away from home when your team is not at it’s best and he’s woefully inadequate at that and I really really wish that wasn’t the case.
Always think it’s a bizarre and irrational response when you have a bad performance and fans think “hey why can’t our best players carry the team!” rather than “hey why can’t we get some other good players to replace the dross our current good players are having to play with!”
The likes of AMN and Kola, Mustafi and Elneny are not good enough to play top quality passing football against a press like Everton’s today. Period.
Amazing how blind Ozil fans have become in regards to his stats. He’s our highest paid player and one of our current longest serving players in the team. He has 4 goals and 2 assists in the league this year. Not very good considering he prides himself on his assist totals. In fact, he’s only one really good season with us in 2015-16 where he had 19 assists but 16 of them were in the first half of the season with only 3 in the final 19 games. So truthfully only one good half season. I’ve been on his side… Read more »
Stats are important but not everything. Especially goals+assists stats. Often it is the second to last pass, or even the third or fourth or fifth last pass, in a move that is key. Ozil often plays those balls. Conversely, players like Kola (not picking on him, he’s just a good example) who frequently cough the ball up cheaply when a move has barely started, or even just play a dumb/wrong pass when a better pass could progress the team forward beyond the press, kill a team’s passing rhythm but rarely get the level of blame they deserve for this. One… Read more »
You do know that an assist comes from Ozil creating a chance and someone else finishing it off right? There is no single player who can just make an assist by himself. He is a chance creator, his teammates will turn those chances into assists. Go look into his chances created and look into how many of them have been missed. It’s like attributing clean sheets to a goalkeeper, without taking his team’s defensive system into account. Go and look into his chances created in the second half of the 15-16 season, and you will see that his chances created… Read more »
I think we have more than enough finishing quality surrounding him. If fact, I’d say we have more than most teams.
Yeah, back then we didn’t, but now we do. And how do we react? By leaving him out for large parts of the season.
Makes sense right? Sign elite finishers and bench an elite creator.
Evidently the finishing quality was good enough the first half of the season for him.
Was he playing in the first half of the season?
Spurs frequently play absolute dross next to Kane and Eriksen, Van Dijk plays with either Lovren or Matip, Hazard is having arguably his best season having had Morata and Giroud to play with until January. The other teams’ big players all step up when their team needs them and make the difference, but we have seen far too little of that from our own big names.
I disagree, while im not Ozils biggest fan, its very hard to do anything worthwhile as an attacking player, if your midfield is being outplayed. A midfield of guendouzi and elneny isnt better than evertons midfield purely based on ability. Players like gueye and andre gomes shouldnt be underrestimated. I dont think anyone would disagree that those two are better than both of ours. It doesnt help that they wanted it more than us aswell.
Personally i can only think of one attacking player in the whole world who could have made a difference for us today.
Well said gentlemen. So many buy into narrative. About Ozil. He needs players around him to play and he will conduct.
True that he needs good players around him, though in this case, just better players on the midfield pivot would have been enough. That’s where we were overrun, and they simply couldn’t advance the ball effectively to Özil, Mkhi, or Laca.
Yes, with those two it perhaps was a bit risky to start with a 3-4-3. You need solid mid pairing to hold down the center of the park with that formation, and the Double Sideshow Bob Pivot (DSBP) isn’t exactly what I’d call ‘solid’.
That’s why the double sub and formation change made a big difference. Emery got it a little bit wrong initially.
One word….
toothless
Two words….
Pure shite
Yeah we should have been so hungry and motivated, you know, top 4 is a bit of a motivator isn’t it????? Champions League?
Bizarre and disappointing.
Bloggs thinks the sun shines out of Ramsey, if anyone else had missed those chances he’d be ripping them to shreds, and Musti had a decent game but he seems the latest one that can do no good at all. It just wasn’t happening for us today, the team set-up was poor again, I think our away form is as much on the manager as the players. Everton were gifted a goal by the useless linesman, which is the last thing you need when you’re struggling. Kos, Xhaka and Torreira should be back for Watford, so hopefully we can beat… Read more »
Ramsey made an immediate impact – ie within 60 seconds a corner. He made chances where there were none before. For me he’s our best player and defo our best big game player. His attitude considering the management made him redundant has been amazing. Obviously just my personal opinion. I’ll miss him.
Is that you blogs
Where does this big game player thing come from? Are there big games where he has stood out or done anything other than finish off a move by scoring? He seems to be given credit for big games, but I don’t remember him doing much in big games.
I have seen Sanchez, Ozil, Carzola, Kos cielny and even Mertesaker have career defining performances in big games, but Ramsey? Can someone give me some big games where this reputation has been gained please?
Never a popular opinion amongst the Ozil fan boys but you are correct. Ramsey did in one minute what Ozil couldn’t in 45. Ramsey, with all his injury problems, has never anything other than a model pro and a big game player for us. Too bad other high profile players haven’t. And yes, I’m looking at you Alexis….and you too Mesut.
Ah, the “model pro” comment. It’s the quintessential argument attributed to a player who’s not good enough.
Not exactly. You can be both a model pro and good enough. Examples: Messi, Aguero. Players being good enough but not model pros: Neymar, Sanchez.
“Ramsey did in one minute what Ozil couldn’t in 45.” This is one of the dumbest, most ignorant comments I’ve seen on here in a long time. Because Ramsey won a corner in the first minute of the second half, something Ozil “couldn’t” do in the first 45 (I haven’t gone back to see if he won any corners in the first half, but let’s assume he didn’t), that tells us…what exactly?? That’s right: nothing. Like, because Ozil didn’t win any corners, it’s supposed to follow that all his contributions were useless or something?? Huh? It’s almost as if they’re… Read more »
Ramsey literally cut through Evertons midfield by himself into our final third, something Ozil (not any of our other midfielders) didn’t do in the first 45.
I think you don’t know what the word “literally” means.
I don’t do that. I do however, call those that attack anyone that says anything remotely negative about their favorite a fan boy. What would you call them?
I’m not criticizing you because you said something “remotely negative” about MO. I’m criticizing you because I find the general way of analyzing football tacit in your comments to be dim and annoyingly widespread.
Glad I’m not here for your amusement then. I find your blind defense of a player that hasn’t been good enough for us to be vomit inducing so I guess you could say we are even.
Ramsey did make a difference, but the formation change made just as much of one.
Really really poor today. Everyone played in their shell. We never one first, second or third balls. The executions was really poor too. Can’t play like thid if we wanna make it into the top 4
The Özil coat thing actually this happened 10 minutes after he was taken off and happened after Mustafi’s challenge that led to the managers losing their shit.
Sad that it was only his jacket and not, say, a slice of pizza.
It was a terrible performance but have to credit Everton. It felt like they had an extra man for most of the game. We were not outclassed but we were outworked and overwhelmed by their energy. Not a good display.
I thought Everton were very good defensively today and absolutely bossed their box. We were poor and another team might of beaten us 3 or 4-0.
We were completely stranded physically today. This was remicent of performances we witnessed during wengers final season; it seemed we were sorry and scared to push in for the tackles and smashing thdm on duels. Modern day footie is still alot about getting stucked in, not acting like primadonna. That said, you can have one Özil in your team, but giving in too much just leaves us wanting just like today. Players should be quite ashamed for not giving their all today. Shambles.
The refereeing was giving them half of the physical edge they had over us. Quick cards for us, but they got away with shove after shove and elbows left and right. I lost count on Gomes’ fouls before he finally earned a card.
Everything was done so slowly all game. No urgency at any point. Even in the second half you could see players waving arms to slow play down and calm it down. Moving the ball as slowly as we did just made it so easy to defend against. Everton defended well and forced us into sideways passing at times but the pace we played at just made it so simple.
You have to give 0/10 to Emery for that starting line up. Talk about sending a message that we weren’t taking this seriously enough. We don’t have that many games left so why are players like Ellena and Mikhi who haven’t had a look in suddenly starting? How long until he learns that you can’t play any B teams in this league? As regards AMN he seems to lose intensity just at the point he needs to increase it, jogging when he needs to sprint and whining way way too much. With Mustaphi and Guendozi starting today it was like… Read more »
I did not watch the game. From what I good gather from match report and live commentary, the midfield duo of Elneny and Guendouzi were equally bad/good. With Guendouzi handed an early yellow card and a talking to by the referee, did Emery haul of the right player at half time?
Its perfectly normal for managers to have their favoured players, but I feel that in this instance Elneny should have stayed on.
Definitely sounds like you didnt watch the game sorry mate
6.5 is way too high in my opinion for Sokratis. Our best defender plays with great passion but what was he doing taking one for the team with what is at stake in the next 2 premier league games? Koscielny does not have it in him to play too many games in quick succession and we have 2 big games coming up against Napoli. I love Sokratis and a contender for player of the season but that moment of madness could be very costly so for me he gets 4/10. Why we did we not take the game to Everton… Read more »
Will we qualify for the champions league . Not if we don’t start picking up our away form. My mind keeps going back to that penalty miss at the end of the spurs game and thinking that the two points dropped will come back to haunt us. I hope that my premonition is not correct but at the end of the day you get what you deserve according to the effort and commitment applied over the course of the season.
Where’s the down votes for mustafi now putos? The man is fucking terrible player. Isles cunt who blames everyone else. FUCK MUSTAFI.
We hear about racism, sexism and aggressive attitude towards human kind. How are these sorts of comments accepted and broadcasted on a site that has a global audience. Distasteful and ashamed to see this abuse here.
The point is where does racism or sexism or any prejudice stem from? The simple answer to that is ignorance. I know the writer of this blog is not a fan of Mustafi but I think he would be appalled to see these aggressive words attacking a professional footballer who at the end of the day just does his job. Its ok to be critical about a player but why cannot we recognise that all prejudices stem from this hatred. If we want a better world then lets challenge abuse when it appears in our face. I hope the writer… Read more »
Rambo (like most of the others) had a very poor participation today, can’t really understand all the “praise”. If it were Iwobi missing those two goal opportunities I don’t know if people would be so condescending.
HOW ON EARTH do you have lacazette and aubameyang and not create a sigle chance for them at all?!!!!
That’s mid-table midfield, leicester city’s midfield is even better than that.
What happened to the team that always had the best passers in the league???
Another great game from our captain today what a legend! Keep singing his name lads as we will never win the league with ozil in the team. Disgrace
Funny that he has a league, fa cup, copa del rey and world cup medals. Maybe the team he is in just isn’t good enough.
Djimi Traore won the Champions League.
As a key player?
I had a bad feeling about this fixture for weeks. It was going to always be difficult and even moreso without any of our best three midfielders starting.
Gotta say…..definitely not enjoying watching Arsenal complete 100 back passes every match this season. Can’t remember them ever passing back to the defense/goalie this much ever. Clearly it’s because we’re lacking creativity…..but they could at least swing the ball to the other side of the pitch instead of constantly giving the ball to players that are not comfortable with the ball….especially under pressure. Feel like Leno and CB’s had the ball more than the midfield.
This game played out as if Marco Silva was ready and waiting for Emery. Everton had an answer for pretty much everything we tried. Granted, they were helped by a) shameful refereeing and b) us playing like shite. But still. We ground them into paté last year, home and away.
Elneny barely looks good enough for the premier League never mind the Arsenal these days.
Elneny shouldnt be a sub for scunthorpe let alot start for arsenal
Fancy the whole team having an off day!!! Everyone was awful (except Leno)
The players I wanted to see in the team (Ozil, AMN & Kolasinac) were terrible! To go to Goodison Park & make Everton look like Barcelona & make Calvert-Lewin look world class is unacceptable… awful performance…. hang your heads in shame AFC
We missed Xhaka
Ramsey came on and made an immediate impact? He gave the ball away countless times, had two excellent chances, but failed to even test Pickford. Fair play for getting into a position to have those chances, but the guy was not (and is not) good enough. Blogs and other Ramsey enthusiasts’s constant attestations that he’s a great servant, and a consummate professional who never hides doesn’t change the fact that he was poor today.
Because of course according to here its another Mustafi problem. Apart from one poor pass and a late tackle, he was solid today. BUT noooo….some people will scrutinize and amplify every fault. 1) Leno – Not much he could do about the goal. Decent otherwise but tepid game. They didn’t muster any serious efforts nor did we. 2) AMN – Very poor today. TOO casual. He has a chance to stake a place at fullback, he needs to focus. Thisis a poor effort with poor decision and overall lacklustre commitment. 3) Mustafi – As mentioned, it is ALWAYS his fault… Read more »
I don’t know what you are seeing…He was at fault for the goal. He allowed the initial flick by Jagielka and then didn’t track him for the goal. Completely his fault on the goal once again. The tackle at the end was pathetic too. He had at least a 5 stride lead to the ball and was so slow he was second best and didn’t even realize it so instead of kicking the ball he kicked the player. A couple good clearances does not make up for the fatal errors he makes consistently.
Infuriating performance. Monreal looked 62, Maitland-Niles 12.
I’d have left on Ozil and taken off Guendouzi, who looked 19.
Just going to throw it into the mix, Everton actually a really decent side at the moment. Sure, was a poor performance, and in these kinds of games you really need a strong midfield (found myself really missing Xhaka – amazing considering was not his biggest fan last season) in order to compete. But that Everton team has turned a corner and at home is now incredibly strong with one of the best home defensive records. I think a touch of perspective is called for. This Arsenal team isn’t vastly superior to Everton’s. I would have been happy with a… Read more »