There wasn’t a great deal that was positive about the draw at Goodison Park, but we did keep a clean sheet for the first time since 1927, and some of our young players got more valuable playing time under their belts.
We did get a point too, not the three we wanted, but every one we get at this point is worth something. It was also Freddie Ljungberg’s final game in charge, Mikel Arteta will now take the reins for the Bournemouth game and beyond.
Read the Everton 0-0 Arsenal report
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.
They were there for the taking today. We need wins, urgently, we can’t act like this season is already gone. We’d have been 4 points behind Chelsea today had we won. At least we looked solid defensively, Saka looked promising.
Buzzing for Arteta. He’ll ship out the bad apples, fingers crossed.
A side point- did nothing horrendous today, but no Premier League club will ever achieve their ambitions with Xhaka playing in midfield. Turns like a tractor, enjoys holding opposition players back as he has the speed of a snail, just a careless player with no discipline whatsoever. He wants to leave? Good riddance.
Well I thought on evidence of today it was clear that Xhaka plays well if you don’t ask him to cover for fullbacks. If the wide players do their job, he can stay in the middle even with his lack of pace and he’s a decent long passer. He is limited tho.
When Torreira is used in his true position as a DM then you will see the best of Xhaka.
Exactly, mate!!…sitting on the bench!
On what authority do you have it he wants to leave? Bild? About your side point, you’ve been making it for months and we all get it. I’ll leave that decision to Arteta, thanks (and I’ll be fine with whatever he chooses). Also, if you watched today’s game and your conclusion is “no discipline whatsoever”, then I really don’t know what to say.
I thought Xhaka played quite well today
Yep, definitely one of the better players on the pitch. Bit of bias showing to give him same rating as the nervy ESR (who improved in the second half to be fair)
That is exactly it. That was a “good” xhaka game. A 0-0 draw against 15th placed Everton. A limited player holding us back. God I hope Arteta is wise enough to see how much he limits what we can do.
Xhaka was excellent today and to scapegoat him is nonsense. Did you not see some of his forward passes and he didn’t put a foot wrong.
Excellent is a stretch. He did his job efficiently against the might of Tom Davies & Fabian Delph!!
Still, he deserves a clean slate with Arteta just as everyone else does. Lets cut the bias.
Absolutely correct assessment of Xhaka – wide and stiff turning circle and half-paced. Plus he is acutely one-footed meaning he takes twice the touches needed before releasing the ball (why he so often gets caught in position). Does not have the physical qualities that should be accepted by a club with genuine ambitions. Don’t care about all the youthful ups and downs Willock will have, would much rather see him regularly in midfield.
you Need a big warm long Christmas hug. most of us prob share some of the frustration you vent, when called for. Xhaka has no part in the Brexit caos, nor global warming
Jai
For some people support means hate and negitivity, sweeping statements. They need to show their extremely high football intelligence. Didn’t take long, for the most toxic fan base in Britian to return to their poisonous habbits..
Young team away from home. Could have been a lot worse.
Hope Arteta can boost performances, I’d prefer not to be 5 points behind Sheffield United.
“Won 100% of his tackles (3/3), 2 interceptions, 7/7 clearances, 5/5 aerial duels. One rash moment late on, but good.” And he only gets a 7?? Seems a bit harsh.
Yes, Chambers was definitely MOTM for me. Also congratulations are in order for chalking up 100 appearances for The Arsenal.
What’s wrong with 7? He had a good game. 7 is a good mark.
If 7 is good what is 6 Blogs?
7/10 was never good when I was at school. It was bang average.
Surely 5/10 is, by definition, average?
That would 5.
8 good 9 very good 10 excellent no?
0…, 1 complete toilet, 2 pathetic, 3 very poor, 4 poor, 5 below par, 6 ok, 7 good, 8 very good, 9 excellent, 10 perfect (should be limited to those rare games that are etched in our eternal memories – e.g. the Bergkamp hattrick).
Agree 100 %
no
6 is like our baseline score. We work up and down from there re: ratings. I thought Chambers was good, but it was a dismal 0-0 draw. Nobody excelled. 7 acknowledges the fact he was good, but there’s no need to go higher than that.
So if Arsenal won with the same performance from Chambers he would get an 8? I understand why, but just does not seem fair on an individual level.
I was actually surprised at how high the ratings were given the match and the match report, perhaps the bar has been lowered in recent months.
1-4 bad/poor
5 is indifferent
6 is acceptable/average.
7 is good/above average
8 very good
9 exellent/outstanding
10 perfect
Basically this!
Yet again arseblog is creating divisions within the fans and a general toxic atmosphere. Change it to a 10 or we riot.
seven is a good mark but the way our defence has been playing this season a good performance and a clean sheet as well should be recognised.
And he had Luiz playing next to him which made the clean sheet even more of an achievement.
Glad to see that Arsenal Fan TV is getting some real stick….
This is normal rating everyone…Blogs rates the players based on his emotions after the game, as well as team ovr performance. If this was a win Chambers would’ve got at least one mark higher. For Blogs there is a ceiling to how high the players rate based on the game outcome.
I saw a lot of positives actually
Seriously, that was one of the worst games I’ve ever seen.
It wasn’t a good game but at least we didn’t shit ourselves every time we were attacked. It was the first time in a while it felt like we were able to defend those chances. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t create anything, but it’ll take a bit of time for the two to come together. And let’s not forget that it was mostly youngsters on the pitch. The future is bright, but only if we sort out the existing problems, change our ageing players to ones in their prime, ones that don’t shoot themselves on the foot every game.
Defensively I thought we did pretty well
A lot of positives? This was comfortably a worse performance than last week, but because we were playing a truly horrible Everton team, rather than one of the best 2 or 3 teams in the world, we got away with a dull draw. Let’s be real: both teams today were desperately short of quality. Misplaced passes, heavy first touches, poor decision making abundant throughout. Anyone saying otherwise–yet who was upset at the performance last week–is revealing their inability to take the context of the opponent into account and judge soberly. (This includes Blogs, who handed out 4’s last week, whereas… Read more »
One thing I could tell from today’s lineup and tactics along with Arteta coming in is that we are going to be playing a much higher paced defensive game and the players that put the effort for closing down on defense, creating turnovers and working their tails off will get the PT regardless of the salary or the number on the back. You could see more of that today with the effort the three behind Aubameyang played with and the fact that Pepe didn’t come on in a tie game when we needed a goal and why Ozil wasn’t in… Read more »
1. How do you know who’s been working the hardest? You been there in training every day? And who cares if you work your butt off the most in training if you’re not actually more likely to help us win on a match day? 2. Why is work rate so consistently fetishized in English football culture? Running around like a chicken with your head cut off without the ball (it’s called doing the Alexis) will win you lots of love from the fans, but doesn’t get you very far if you then make poor decisions on the ball or misplace… Read more »
Freddie sending a clear message to senior players today. I certainly wouldn’t be against going with the same starting 11 again on Thursday. Going with younger players will guarantee some painful results, but I think our young players are worth persisting with. We need Arteta to be a project manager, not a quick fix, that means he’ll need to be brave, willing to take some stick, and go through some growing pains. Niles, Saka, Nelson, Smith-Rowe, Willock, Martinelli, Guendouzi, Nketiah are the future. We just need to remember they’re 22,18,19,19,19,18,20,20, cut them some slack, and give them room, and a… Read more »
FL is not the coach who was chosen this week and fortunately so. Being indulgent with the young ones and agressive against the “old” ones is not a way to bring harmony and balance into a team.
Titi tried what you describe at Monaco, at least to my memory. Ruthlessly condemned most of the experienced players as just filling their pockets. Too much too soon, and it got him the sack.
Right. At times, it felt as if Freddie was trying to fit all his U23 graduates into the time regardless of the state of play, and ensure his short legacy.
I like this crop of youngsters a lot, but there’s nothing to suggest they’re Fergie’s Fledglings 2.0. The same fans who are saying they’re the future and we should play them all for the rest of the season will be slagging them off in two years time as not good enough (see Iwobi, Alex). Realistically, only a couple of that crop are going to be good enough to be regular Arsenal starters, that is if we plan on being a CL team. We could get lucky and they could prove me wrong, but the odds are against us. Right now… Read more »
The guys we needed performances from, AMN, Luiz, Chambers, and especially Saka all came through. We hustled, got back, and tried to recover the ball quickly when we lost it in their half. Thought our mid field tandem looked better in this game than probably the last 10.
10/10 for Ancelotti’s expressions during the game. Arteta? Would not want to play poker against that guy. Nothing.
At least the team defended like a unit today. First time since Newcastle. Hopefully the clean sheet can generally lack of chances given to the oppo can help built that confidence.
Thought chambers had a very solid game (last.min foul aside).
Yet another coach calling out Ozil’s attitude. Can we please stop blaming Emery for Ozil’s omission?
Lacazette barely played under Freddie. Guendouzi was also benched. What Freddie was trying to do is bigger than Ozil.
Who is (are) the other coach(s)? Wenger, UE, Mou have never blamed Özil for being angry when being substituted… On the contrary, all saying they prefer an angry player. But imagine Granit! Poor man, he would have been kicked out to the moon.
Ozil was injured today but Freddie said he wouldn’t have played him anyway. It just shows why Freddie is far removed to being a top manager. We missed his creativity and to openly criticise him is not the Arsenal way. In 22 years I can’t remember Arsène Wenger ever openly embarrass a player.
“In 22 years I can’t remember Arsène Wenger ever openly embarrass a player.” And that is exactly why we have such a soft mentality at Arsenal. Arsene made it too comfortable for too many for too long. Absolute legend, great manager, great guy, but our soft underbelly is on him and IMO his greatest short-comings as a manager was his inability to adjust his player management style to personnel. His prime years his teams were filled with leaders and he could sit back and let them sort out the discipline. Post Champs League Final the characters of our teams changed… Read more »
There was an Arteta profile on the bbc that described him speaking up in the dressing room after a poor performance when he just joined the club, while Wenger looked on in silence. I think this summed up Wenger’s management.
I’m one of Ozil’s biggest defenders, yet I don’t care that Freddie was going to drop him for kicking his gloves or that he publicly criticized him. If you want to lay down the law like that, then provided you’re consistent and don’t leave the player out for ridiculous reasons for too long (e.g. Emery), then fine. Drop him for one game, fine him, or whatever. Being a hard ass doesn’t prove you’re not a top manager. But what bothers me is the consistent undervaluing, from fans and pundits, of the sort of link play that Ozil, alone in our… Read more »
Most of people sadly don’t see that we lack creative players. The transfer windows were poor. Ozil (or any other 10) has to do now the role of a few players. Not so long ago we had Xhaka, Cazorla, Ozil, Ramsey and Sanchez in the same team. Then we had the likes of Wilshere, Iwobi, Mkhitaryan… Those were all the players who were capable of creating. Like you said we didn’t even replaced Iwobi and Mkhitaryan. We miss them and most fans will never admit that. We also had players like Giroud, Welbeck and Sanchez who could hold the ball… Read more »
Auba made the perfect run a few times and ESR either didn’t see it or didn’t have the confidence to make the pass, all our midfield is like that. Love him or hate him we need Mesut Ozil, and we need him to be given the ball. Guendouzy does the same thing even when Mesut gets into the perfect space, looks at him and passes the ball either back or across to someone down a blind alley. Some of these youngsters will be good one day but they aren’t yet, and we probably need a midfield more than a defence… Read more »
Commitment from the young players and a clean sheet. Something to build- on.
Arteta needs to work out which of the experienced highly paid “ stars” he can improve / work with and which are poisonous
I trust him to make the hard decisions
Ozil is out soon, guys, be patient! And today what a game! We were so much better without him. ESR was out of this world!
Seriously? We had no creativity which Ozil could have provided
Ozil can pass a ball yes, but takes too many touches/is too slow/too weak/poor defensively / has a bad attitude. Pros Vs cons.. Let’s have it
He’s neither too slow nor takes too many touches. It’s bizarre that you think this. His first touch and his ability to receive the ball on the half turn are almost certainly the best in the current squad (not that that’s saying much). Obviously a number of our guys are faster in a straight sprint, but he’s far from the slowest (squad sprinting stats from just last season are online somewhere, with MO closer to the top than the bottom). And if several of our players tend to play faster with the ball at their feet, for most of them… Read more »
Gooner
“but takes too many touches/is too slow”
You drunk.. Did you just copied all the complaints about Xhaka and pasted then under Ozil’s name..
The only time Mesut will take a few touches is because he’s waiting for somebody, anybody, to get into a space so he can make a pass. Mesut will always see the pass before the player makes it, and nobody ahead of him is making any intelligent movement. There’s a reason that Mesut and Auba are so frustrated and bad tempered, they are trying to create when nobody else is doing their bit.
He’s being sarcastic, obviously.
ESR was nowhere near that…..ah I see what you did there.
Add a point to all of your scores and cheer up Blogs! 🙂
Not the best game to watch but we actually defended well for once. And seeing as everyone makes a big song and dance every time we fail at passing it out from the back, I think it’s only fair to mention we looked very comfortable doing that today for the most part. Chamber and Luiz together certainly helps there, maybe something for Arteta to work with.
Did we defend well, or does Everton’s attack just really, really suck right now?
A scoop of each
Saka should be getting MOTM for every game he plays at LB. Attacking 18 yr old winger and arguably performed better in this game than Tierney and Kolasinac have all a season. Could we have a new Ashley Cole on our hands?!?! Yes yes I know I’m exaggerating!
I’m not going to overhype him like we’ve done so many times, but I really thought he didn’t look out of place at left back today. Made blocks, managed position well, didn’t look like he got beat much if at all, and we know he’s a fairly effective attacker. Obviously He’s not leveled up to Nacho level yet, but he made his presence known of the full left side. He didn’t seem to burn out either. I’ve been pleasantly surprised how he’s helped out with a problem I was really fearing.
I was surprised ‘Big Dunc’ didn’t try to expose Saka with diagonal balls (Everton’s left to right) to Richarlason or Calvert Lewin. Seemed like an obvious thing to try.
But yes, Saka did well again at LB. Not sure how he’d handle the long diagonal against a physical player though. Not sure I want to find out.
“Something to build on” for Torriera. Should have been the same for Pepe. He deserved to be given a chance today. Reiss Nelson didn’t do much to merit 90 minutes on the pitch.
Won’t waste time rating. 4s all around. Tired of watching a U-23 side play the grown-ups. Eleventh place, five points clear of relegation. Wishing for Auba-Laca strike force and just a glimmer of an attempt at a counterattack. Arteta’s job is a really massive one.
So you didn’t watch it? Or close attention is beneath you? Nice
I think everyone in general put in an effort. Some lose passes one from Torreira but otherwise mostly we tried to protect the ball and play short passes well enough. Just a bit of timidness committing forward. Torreira and Granit probably a more stable partnership defensively as we will get with current complement but neither particularly with appetite to venture forward at potential expense to the back and maybe not necessarily a bad thing. OTOH bc we played Smith-Rowe(whom I thought was OK but raw) we did not have sufficient link up with Aubameyang the sole striker. would have preferred… Read more »
O:0 to th Arsenal. Steps back consistently. The Arsenal’s Laboratory with the new formula, lineup every time. The first half was for the ones who are one football like a drog. Good substitution cure against addiction and passion. Who wants to watch a team like that? That hopeless U shaped passing at the back with sterile possession…
Arteta’s first line up will be very interesting. I’m going with: Leno AMN-Chambers-Luiz-Saka Torreira-Xhaka Rhys Nelson-Smith Rowe-Martinelli Lacazette My thinking is that he’ll want extra protection for the full backs. And that he wants energy and players who will put in the effort. I’m not sure Xhaka will start but I think he’ll want some experience in midfield. But he could go for Willock. I think Pepe might be politely coached into doing what Martinelli does before he can start regularly. The modern game means he’s going to have to hunt down full backs when they try breaking on us.… Read more »
Apart from Upamecano, God I pray Ziyech should come to Arsenal. We need someone to bring out the best in Auba, Laca, Pepe and Martinelli