Arsenal moved up to 7th place in the Premier League thanks to a 4-0 win over Norwich at the Emirates this evening.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang opened the scoring, capitalising on a mistake from Tim Krul (HAHA!), before turning provider for Granit Xhaka to score the second. Another Norwich error the skipper his second goal, before debutant Cedric Soares wrapped up the scoring just minutes after coming on.
All in all, a positive night for Mikel Arteta and his team.
Read the Arsenal 4-0 Norwich report and see the goals here
Here’s how the players rated this afternoon.
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.
How did Nketiah get better rating than Laca? Bellerin’s rating was too generous.
Bellerin’s rating was a little generous, but 100% agree with Blogs that I’d rate Nketiah ahead of Laca. Honestly if we sold Lacazette to help fund re-signing Auba, I’d be completely behind that. Laca has unfortunately looked poor for quite some time now. And we’ve got Nketiah and Martinelli in the wings.
I dont think money is the issue with Auba. He want’s to play in the CL
Gave an interview and said it was up to Arsenal. Do you think he meant up to Arsenal to qualify for CL or
up to them to accept his financial demands?
Both?
I’d go for a straight swap laca for partey.
Sell Laca and use the funds to keep both Auba and Balogun – it’ll be a crime if we let that young lad leave!
What has Balogun done to date to convince you that he will be a world beater? I want us to keep our youngsters but in reality some have to be moved on. If we keep him and he does not progress to the first team we would have restricted his development significantly.
Laca got himself in situations where he could of had 2 goals and he was unlucky but he builds up so much play for the team. He works back defensively and was able to receive the ball deep which opened up the channels for Auba to receive the ball deep with plenty of room to run in. Don’t agree with the harsh criticism on Laca he does so much off the ball that is overlooked.
In general, Laca and Pépé not giving the goal contribution expected from them is the problem we have.
Pete has 8 goals and 8 assists in not only his first season in the Premier League, but having played for 3 managers, in a mostly poor team.
In my book that is a goal contribution.
5 league goals pretty poor contribution bearing in mind his price tag.
Bollocks… you cannot just abstract a player’s price tag from the context in which he played. Look at Neder’s stats below – given how many actual minutes he’s been on the field; the management cock-ups; the complete shambles our defence (and mid-field) has been; the lack of presence/form of an Ozil-type to put him into space where he can use his pace and feet to best effect… he’s been above average to say the least!
Ive watched every game and, he hasnt pulled up any trees hes done ok. More was expected of him being a big money record signing. Calm yourself down and learn some manners.
With all due respect, what you say about pepe’s lack of goal contribution is utter nonsense. He’s played in 36 games this season, of which 12 as a sub. In those games he’s scored 8 and assisted 8. With the sub appearances in mind, pepe is scores or assisted once for less than 180 minutes of football played….
I guess the thing is that I think of him in the context of Giroud, who he in many ways replaced. Giroud did pretty much all of those things better. If Lacazette doesn’t score more, then we basically have ended up worse. I guess the one thing worth considering would be can we play Lacazette as an attacking midfielder? I’m not sure if his passing is up to it, but aside from Ceballos match today, we’ve been pretty lacking on that front, given Ozil being a non-factor.
no wonder all the years we were pushing for a laca signing and Arsene didnt move for him.
I seriously dont mind playing laca as 1 of our CMs next season. he has good work rate, good skill and strength, and he’s a goal threat.
Oli remains sadly under-rated by too many… imagine Auba and Pepe feeding off his hold-up play. And him feeding off Tierney/Cedric’s crosses… mmmmmm
Guys remember we sold Giroud to buy Auba, and not Laca. So, no point comparing. Giroud’s replacement is scoring goals.
PS: I am aware it’s Laca who plays as the CF.
Maybe his time as Central striker is over and he’ll thrive btw the CF and CM
I bet the overlap between people who hate Laca and people who hate Giroud is vast. Lots of people don’t watch games closely enough to look beyond goals for a striker.
Laca has been in poor form recently, though. He doesn’t need to be scoring to play well, but he hasn’t been doing either for a while. People saying get rid are silly, though.
Bellerin’s rating is probably relative to his recent performances, and the fact that that was probably his best game under Arteta. Thought he had a good game defensively and was much better going forward than we’ve seen recently. Just needs to work on his decision making and execution now.
Hector looked sharp the first 30-40 minutes. He did back pass as much even after he got tired
Enjoyed that. This Manager has really begun turning us around. There will be dips in the road ahead of course, but you are beginning to see some of the hard work and changes he’s put in place beginning to bare fruit and its great to see. 0/10 for all the toxic fans I saw on twitter calling us and the team selection shit before the game. Support your team lads, or pipe down.
Definitely good rating for Arteta today. Our first half dominance was due to his tactics and how he set us up from the start. We looked dangerous from the off and the biggest compliment was an experienced manager having to make three subs at the break and completely changing their system due to the sheer dominance of how we were set up. The subs were on point too!
Up the gunners!!
That’s the spirit. Nice one Abhilash.
We are two signings away from being competitive again. Upermarcano, Partey and a goal scoring attacking midfielder like Coutinho
That’s 3.
haha
He mentioned 2 then added an eye catching goals from distance stroller who works back as hard as ozil but never got mentioned whilst at Liverpool. Funny how they became far more competitive and complete when he left!
Yeah, when we finally get rid of Özil, lets bring in another number 10 who’s doing it in every 5th – 10th game and is completely anonymous in the others ones. Great idea.
buying coutinho is the stupidiest thing we could do now. We cant afford any luxury players in this team. The kind of press which we had today would be difficult with ozil / coutinho.
Santi for Ozil… please oh please Footie Gods! It’s in the divine script for Pete’s sakes
That’s 3 signings ..coutinho my arsehole
Graphic
I would like us to consider Sergej from Lazio. Big guy, skillful, and contributes goals.
I’ll let Raul know…
Even if he hadn’t scored a fantastic goal, I was still impressed by Cedric. He looked sharp, fast and got some decent crosses in. Hope he gets a few more minutes in this last bit of the season
and seems two footed. That’s always a bonus. well, I guess every player has two feet….never mind.
Happy Canada Day!!!
#COYG. Not the strongest opposition, but good solid, encouraging performance. Let’s keep the momentum going boys. Lava just needs a goal…
That was very krul ..
Don’t be so Krul!
You should win the Arseblog fan trophy for today.
martinez >>> alisson
Yeah, we’re 7th, not 6th.
Ta, fixed it.
Why downvote that? Bizarre.
Because we dropped a place maybe?
Hah, fair play, didn’t think of that.
How Tierney only gets a 7 is mad beyond belief!
He was very alert defensively as well.
I don’t get that either. Man of the Match for me, even just for his defending in the final few minutes, clearances from both sides of the pitch. The guy is a monster.
Those thighs…
Mustafi and Kolasinac were both terrible. Wonder if Arteta realised Mustafi was having a shocker and withdrew him. Kolasinac is so clumsy it’s a crime to play him at centre back in a defence that already makes mistakes a better team would have punished us. I dont we should be too quick to rate this game, 2 awful mistakes led to goals, a deflected goal, they hit the bar at 0-0. Fine margins. Ceballos was excellent in the first half and Tierney was strong throughout. Wolves will be much much tougher.
Kolasinac is awful would be good to get rid of him and mustafi in the transfer window.
Arteta Was obviously resting mustafi, he has played every game
We played well because our system worked well. It was impressive to observe Tierney and Bellerin tuck in the midfield and kill the counters!
One thing it is obvious to me is that Kolasinac and Mustafi have very bad Decision making. That’s why the hesitate and the are susceptible to interceptions. We cannot rebuild with them. Lacazette needs a change too.
Tierney was my MOM, he never put a foot wrong and ran himself ragged yet was still the last defender when called upon. Terrific performance. Future Arsenal legend
Blogs says I can’t thumb you up more then once
Would add few things. Has a great engine, always drives forward with determination, crosses are almost every time spot on. With a little help from Bergkamp and he stays injury free, world class in the making, not just a potential.
Shoots on sight of goal too
I’m not sure Bellerin enjoyed being taken off, deep down he would have felt something there. Its one thing to be replaced by AMN or Mustafi, but the guy who has his sights on replacing you?
I felt for him, could well be the beginning of the end for him at Arsenal. Will be interesting to see how Cedric performs next few games. More importantly what he can do for Pepe.
Relax we were 4-0 up, you could even play Gunnersaurus at RB
Gunnersaurus is a monster!
Calm down about Bellerin man it is normal nowadays to have 2 good LBs and RBs as it is such physically demanding position anyway that you need to rest them sometimes. Give Hector time to rebuild his confidence and to regain form.
Cedric was good, but does he care about the environment?
He might end the tree planting career of our fav RB.
Aubameyang will rightly get the plaudits and Tierney is a joy to watch but Ceballos deserves a special mention as well. He was woeful against Brighton, and rightly criticised on here as well, so it’s only fair to point out how good he was today. The kid has serious talent and it’s only right to acknowledge that, even if he doesn’t have a future with us. Here’s hoping he keeps up the performances until the end of the season. Worried about Lacazette, he didn’t show anything today to suggest he should be starting ahead of Nketiah, who looked electric… Read more »
Lacazette been off form a whole season and a half now…is this really normal?
I like his work rate and think hes a decent player but has he ever been that good? his goal scoring record for arsenal isnt that impressive really.
He has has been good in patches, sadly this season has been terrible from him. Ofcourse he works hard but makes scoring look so difficult. Wouldn’t mind if we sold him.
As he was our Player of the year last season that doesn’t make sense at all. He’s only been off form since his injury this season.
He last scored an away goal last season
Cedric for a RB he has a very good left foot!
Thanks Blogs, ‘the man can sniff out a goal like a police dog with it’s snout up a coke smugglers arse’. Spat out my Stripe laughing…
I’m really beginning to warm to Ceballos, he works so hard and always looks forward to progress the ball. I wasn’t keen on him initially but now I’d rather like to see us keep him if we could persuade Real Madrid to be sensible about the fee.
I’m beginning to wonder whether we might just get to extend his loan. He can’t go back to Real, gonna be hard for them to sell him him anywhere else. Another year might be the perfect option.
Is today enough reason to want to keep him?he played well today,and scored a goal in the FA tie. But his last good game for us was last year.
I’m not really judging him on today Bob, before lockdown I thought nah, he’s not what we need but in the 5 games since the restart he’s got gradually better and improved across the board, I guess the test is the next 5 games which are all considerably more difficult than Norwich. We shall see?
Will Ozil make another 350K this week?
Decent performance first half. Struggled second half until arteta made necessary changes with Willock on. 1) Martinez – Stayed alert all match. A very reasonable back up performance thus far to Leno. 2) Bellerin – Still struggling a bit for pace and fluency. Probably still fitness issues. He has competition now from Soares but believe he can get back to his best(sooner than later the better) 3) Mustafi – Again some people asleep. Two fantastic cross field passes to pick out Tierney today. A slew of good headed clearances too. Likely taken off to preserve for forthcoming… Read more »
Sure glad that Luiz Soares signing is finally bearing fruit. Didn’t even end up costing us £40+
£40 million plus*.
Days like today make you feel good about the future!
We have ourselves a left-back, ladies and gentlemen!
And although we have a mess of talent that needs sorting out upfront, I think we’re on the right track.
As I’ve maintained ad nauseam at this point, we must do whatever we can to keep Auba.
I like the guy so much I’d be happy to see him flourish in La Liga if that’s his choice. But he’s got a solid 4-5 15-goal seasons left in him, I’m sure.
Is it totally unrealistic to :
– Sell Lacazette
– Sign Willian to play on the left wing
– Keep Auba and play him center forward
– Buy Thomas Partey
– Sell one of our CB
– Re-sign Ceballos in a one year loan
That would be my second best dream scenario for the summer. The best one being finding a fountain of youth and re-signing Campbell, Touré, Vieira, Gilberto, Freddie, Pires, Bergkampf and Henry.
I’d add signing Upamecano but my dreams cannot be that wilds.
I’m not sure having a 32 year old Willian starting games right after giving Saka a new contract is the biggest confidence boost a young player needs. We also have Martinelli and Aubameyang who play there too.
I thought Kolasinic player well. Off course his terrible clearance last week led to arsenal conceding but so did Holding in the previous game(he went on to play really well in the next game) . Funny how both attempted clearances were similar but the one for Kolasinic was rightly stated as poor but the one for Holding was considered unlucky. I understand that both Mustafi and Kolasinic are accident prone but we also have to give them credit when they do well.
We beat one of the worst teams in the league. Let’s see how we do over the next 3 matches, wolves, Leicester and spurs. Fingers crossed we don’t do an arsenal.
Based on those training videos where Auba plays keeper for fun, I’d say we had the two best goalkeepers on the field today
I am about to do a long-ish post because I hope to one day write about Arsenal and just have a little community of Arsenal fans to chat with. First, I can’t be the only one that is super impressed with Martinez, the guy has been so solid and surely deserves more starts next season assuming he stays beyond the summer because he is at the age where I am sure that he wants to play every week. Next, I thought Mustafi, Luiz, and Kolasinac looked solid enough but Luiz really does look better in a back 3 and his… Read more »
What’s the beef with Krul?
He’s a world
cupclass knobOops… your oxford street reproduction, tissue-thin away shirt is showing it’s true colours Mate!
Krul is right up there with Costa, Shawcross and Van Pisstake-roy
There have been a few incidents down the years. The first one was in 2011ish when Newcastle were either ahead or drawing with us for most of the game and Krul was wasting time and running his mouth. RVP was talking back to him, and eventually we scored a late winner and RVP got up in his face and taunted him. There’s a good story about it on the Most Hated XI pod on Patreon from last year. The most recent incident was when Krul saved the penalty from Auba and was talking shite about it, then Auba scored the… Read more »
Thanks, Papa!
Sign a quality CD, a quality CM and re-sign Auba and we will challenge for top 4. A lot of big if’s there!
Could we try and get one of the Wolves centre backs, like Boly?
I’m actually quite content with how Lacazette has performed his role thus far. We have clearly changed our system with Lacazette dropping extremely deep because he is so strong on the ball and able to turn often. The point of this is to make Auba and Pepe (Nelson yesterday) the heroes of running the ball forward. Think of Firmino.
Great win that. Most of the squad very impressive. I’m really worried about Laca though. Can’t believe I’m saying this but is it time to cash in? His lovable friendship with auba and Pepe can only take him so far with us. He honestly right now wouldn’t get into another top half league team. I think if we could get £40-£50 million for him it would set us up well. Nketiah is a much better forward than him right now and to me has been all season. Would get us Partey as well. Then we’ve Auba, Eddie, Gabbi and even… Read more »
We’d be lucky to get £30m for him
Tim Krul
Thinks he’s so cool.
But Auba played him
For a fool.
Couldn’t have happened
to a nicer bloke.
Tim Krul
He’s a joke!
Kinda have the feeling that Lacazette has been struggling with his confidence since the day he joined us. Even when he was regularly scoring, he seems to lack that “I’ll fuck you up!” character that he had in Lyon. Wonder why. Good work rate yesterday though, yet some shockers missed.