Arsenal recovered from a poor first half in which Leeds dominated possession and chances, to perform better in the second period and advance to the fourth round of the FA Cup thanks to a goal from Reiss Nelson.
It was very much a game of two halves, but in the end the Gunners did what needed to be done. That’s two wins in a row, and two clean sheets in a row too – although we did have some smart saves from Emi Martinez to thank for that.
Read the Arsenal 1-0 Leeds report and see the goal 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 Emi Martinez. Also, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Anybody else just love Arteta’s death stare when the interviewer told him what Lacazette had said about his ht team talk?
COYG!
You go round the M25 not up
You don’t go anywhere on the m25.
Aye. These particular wankbottles have themselves an upwards M1 journey to enjoy whilst pondering their defeat.
Very true, unless you get on at Heathrow and go north.
Should really have a first and second half rating.
I thought holding was decent in the first half defensively then quiet in the second (not a bad thing for a defender)
Pepe looked good but runs into trouble too often (probably used to using his trickery to get past crappy Ligue one defenders)
Loved Sok vs 3 in the corner then Willock getting involved
Martinelli is really something special
Holding was really poor on the ball throughout the whole game. Thought blogs is being overly harsh on Gunedoozi, he was everywhere 2nd half.
Yeah, but Matteo’s first half uselessness was kind of emblematic of that poor 45 minutes from everyone.
Honestly for some weird brain fart of a split second I though – what has Dominic Matteo got to do with anything!
I completely agree, but then everyone should be marked down not just Guendouzi…
“everywhere” is in his locker, the rest isn’t yet imo.
Yes, Matteo was a beast in the second… I remember thinking that if this boy could be consistently playing as he was in that second half, then we won’t have to overly rely on Torreira for that bite. He still has some growing to do of course but he’s special nonetheless.
I don’t think so. Guendouzi is probably the only player in the squad that seems abit lost like he was still being privately coached by Unai. 2nd half was big improvement but the annoying thing to me is all about his application. He is far too casual off the ball. All that is required is just more commitment. There was one instance in the game where leeds were breaking through and they crossed the ball into the box. Guendouzi stopped tracking his runner midway in the box and opted to hold his position where he was marking empty space. If… Read more »
I thought Laca and Xhaka really brought the fight (literally) to Leeds in the second half. Everyone else improved, too. Not a perfect game of course but I had a lot of fun overall.
I’m xhaka’s biggest critic but I thought he was really good, shows with the right manager he could be a decent player. Loved his tackles, loved Sokratis dribbling down the line aswell. Adios Leeds
I’m Xhaka s 2nd biggest critic and no I thought his performance in the first half was shocking like everyone else but especially him. He made silly xhaka errors sliding when all he has to do is stay on his feet against a player going absolutely no where. His lack of pace and trailer turning radius is a massive negative for him. Takes away his good passing skills. If you have to weigh the good vs the bad of xhaka the bad will win. I still think he should be moved on.
I’d moved him on only if we were getting a real upgrade. We’re missing athletic ball carrier in the middle. A kante, Wijnaldum, Santi etc. Right now are using 2-3 players to fulfill the transition to play out of defense. Our CB/CMs are looking for Laca/Ozil in between the lines to pass to. Where as none of our CMs can turn and carry the ball forward breaking the press. Guendouzi can do this but he’s very nervous to try it in our third and him and Xhaka doens’t work. He leaves Xhaka over exposed.
I think that is part of Artetas game plan! I would like to see if we are committing more fouls under his management in order to break up play early and not let teams get into a rhythm.
13 touches from ozil in the first half. can’t wait for us to get rid of him
Oh shut up!
Enjoy your ebening, Unai.
Ozil was pretty good I thought. Struggled a bit with physical opposition like this, as we have seen before, but he put in a decent shift.
16 successful passes in the whole game. no shots, no tackles, no interceptions, no blocks. lost possesion 4 times. so unless we’re talking about off the ball play or something, he didn’t even touch the ball enough to say he was ‘pretty good’
13… which is still more than double your IQ.
i gave my opinion on a player’s performance and you reply trying to offend me, instead of actually explaining why you differ (which is actually the point of the comment section). think about it. cheers!
Xaka was very good!
Seems like I was watching a different match. I thought Xhaka was generally poor. Giving away silly free kicks, often out of position, giving the ball away to Leeds, off the pace in general, slow to track back. He did play a couple of his nice long trademark passes but for me that’s not enough to earn a place in Arsenal first team and we suffer by not having someone with quicker feet and quicker instincts in that position. Definitely not a terrible performance but not what we need and we were lucky one or two of his mistakes didn’t… Read more »
I got to say, a big shout out to the ref. Was nice to see a game refereed where yellow cards weren’t flashed around and every 50 50 wasn’t punished. I thought he let it be a real FA cup tie so fair play to him.
We got off easy on yellows I feel but still was good to see.
Why was the game stopped for their var check for violent Conduct but ours wasn’t?
Completely agree, some tackles that are usually punished were let go, it really pushed up the intensity of the game. Loved some of the challenges from our boys, I thought the celebration from Sokratis after that tackle in our box toward the end of the game was just brilliant. We were never like this under Emery.
xhaka shoul’ve gotten a yellow card at least 3 times and he didn’t. and we’re talking about anthony taylor here so he can fuck off nonetheless
Especially as it was Anthony Taylor – he’s usually a disgrace to his federation!
How can we play so awful one half, and then show up for the second half? We were very lucky Leeds were not 2-0 at half time. This BS playing good, or OK has been going on for the past 5-6 years. We did it during Wenger, Emery, and now Arteta. For some reason, our players think a football match is played for 45 minutes. The second half performance was much better, and we should use that as a baseline for every game, not when the fans are pissed or the manager tells the players the need to show up.… Read more »
What is “BS”?
Bacary Sagna?
Calm yourself mate this is arsenal
I love Holding but he needs to be put back in the oven, he’s not ready yet! A 5 was generous. I think Guendouzi’s rating is a little harsh as well, he really helped push us on second half.
For heavens sake it was his first full match for a long time and he was bound to be rusty.
So we shouldn’t rate him at all is what you’re saying Martin?
As I said, he’s not ready yet and it showed!
But he needs game time to get ready?
Anyone who has watched Leeds under Bielsa should not be surprised. Its the fa cup afterall so the fact we turned around such a poor half against decent opposition so dramatically is what I’m going to take from this game. Lacazette needs a goal but his all round play has excelled in the last 2 or 3 games. Absolutes love Martenelli. His attitude is what every youth player should aspire to.
True, Nelson especially needs some lessons from him.
Think Sok, playing out of position, really put in a shift. Some iffy moments in the first half but, was excellent for most of the game. Toss up between him & Martinez for MOTM for me.
Yeah I was surprised Laca got the MOTM as he was off the pace in the first half whilst Martinez was on fire the whole game. Agree that Sok did v well.
Went into the game full of optimism, but that first half was a reminder of why we’re 10th after 21 games, with a goal difference of minus 2.
No Mustafi on the bench, and he was in the training pictures, maybe on his way out?
Martinelli, Pepe, Nelson, Saka are all raw, but big potential, we’re suddenly over stacked with No9s and wide forwards.
Kind of sad that we need to play all first team players (most of whom are normal starters) in a home cup match against a Championship team and with that were drastically outplayed in the first half and lucky not be behind 2 or 3 goals. Glad we came out stronger in the second half, but that first half was awful.
It was not sad as I believe that Arteta wanted to keep the momentum going after beating Man Utd and is obviously taking the chance to win a trophy seriously. I agree we were very poor first half but a win with with another clean sheet is welcome
Kind of sad you think we could do anything else.
Well, to be fair, that’s not just any Championship team, these are the leaders. They might actually do pretty well in the PL as well and could be a solid midtable team. If we were talking about the 10th or 11th in the Championship table, I would completely agree with you.
Top Championship Teams are better than bottom ranked premier League teams and right now Leeds are at the top of the Championship table, So Playing most of our first team was the correct Move. You wouldn’t play your youth Team against Watford would you?
I normally agree with Blogs numbers but I thought Guendouzi was better than most in the first half and the driving force in the second – was really expecting an 8.
I’m literally re-watching the 2nd half as I type (all the players with the exception of Martinelli were poor for the 1st), and I can’t believe the numbers posted by Blogs for some of the players. I think Guendouzi was a beast all through the half, he was every where mopping up loose balls and snapping at the heels of the Leeds midfielders. Xhaka must have something on the ref as even he couldn’t believe how many of his challenges went unpunished, and in the latter stages of the game every time he felt a touch and went down, we… Read more »
Yep – having watched it again, he deserved a better score than that.
A clean sheet is a good result afterall
Sorry for my lack of knowledge I am a younger fan of the club but why do we hate Leeds haha?
Because they invented Stoke
Not sure about things even more in the past, but they had a relatively successful team in the mid nineties early 2000s with many proper a**hole characters in their team (Lee Bowyer anyone?) and a very rough style of play.
At that time, they were proper competition for European Cup qualifying spots.
Bit like Stoke a few years ago, where you already knew before the away game that they would batter you throughout the whole 90 mins, the ref would do nothing about it and you’d return with 2 injured players and probably without points.
What’s Danny Mills done to piss you off. See what I did there?
10/10 for the quality of Arteta’s side lunges and gesticulation as the patrols the side line.
Guendouzi motm
“I thought he was quite good and the fact that he was boiling the piss of Danny Murphy with almost everything he did made it even better. I would like to serve Danny Mills a pint of his own boiled piss. Cooled down. Then frozen. A piss pop.” That was my first experience listening to Danny Murphy and my goodness is he a twat. Offers nothing more than pub chat. The kind of pundit who will get stuck into Arsenal for cynical fouls and not in the spirit of the game as quickly as he’ll call them soft for not… Read more »