Arsenal did their best to beat Arsenal tonight in the Europa League, but in the end Arsenal overcame Arsenal to beat Olympiacos 3-1.
Martin Odegaard became the first Norwegian to score the club when he smashed home in the first half, but despite being in control, another shambolic playing out from the back error let the home side equalise.
However, Gabriel powered home a brilliant header to put us back in front, before substitute Mohamed Elneny cracked one home from 30 yards to give us three away goals.
Here’s how the players rated.
Read the Olympiacos 1-3 Arsenal match report and see the goals here
Olympiacos 1-3 Arsenal – Player Ratings
The ratings are 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, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Sokratis to his teammates before the match: “They probably won’t even try it but just let them shoot from distance”.
Sleeper agent turned out to be quite useful.
*Insert gif of Monsieur le Wenger winking*
How fucking good is tierney. We have arguably one of the best left backs in Europe. I don’t think that’s hyperbolic or bias.
Looking back, Arsenal have had a string of great left backs: most recently Monreal, then Cole, Winterburn, Sansom, Nelson, McNab, and stretching further back in time, Eddie Hapgood, Frank Bradshaw, and Joe Shaw.
I hope Tierney becomes another Arsenal legend like the many who have preceded him.
You forgot Sylvinho
Great call Archie. I was in the north bank the night Sammy dropped his shorts and mooned the fans who were giving him stick previously. But who’s the best? For me Ashley then Kenny then KT
Clichy and Gibbs were quite good too, in my opinion.
Partey gives us a structure in midfield but I know he’s capable of so much more and I feel like he can really step up a gear if he wants to. Hope to see it soon
Has to manage his return carefully. Hopefully we’ll see his very best on Sunday… 🤞
He certainly can be better, but you only have to see the way the game changed when he went off. Anyone want to Understand his influence on the team and particularly xhaka watch the 20mins after his substitution. His presence alone demands so much coverage and provides xhaka so much space, which is where he thrives. Partey makes xhaka a much better player.
Absolutely. But I have lost all patience with Xhaka’s limitations on transition. He is at best average and will never be the distributive ‘pivot’ we need, not is he an iron-clad midfield wall. Which means I’d far rather see Mo’Nenny playing next to Partey – their few outings have looked good and I refuse to believe he is a weaker player than Xhaka! One cannot underestimate the ‘drag’ effect that Xhaka has on our attacking play – any counter just stagnates when the ball reaches him, either losing vital seconds of momentum or worse, being banged back to Leno. it… Read more »
‘not’ = ‘nor’ … apologies.
He is the structure (or whoever plays in his place) the other guy basically plays left back to protect all his weaknesses. Xhaka’s role is not only specialised to protect him but he’s the only central midfielder I’ve ever seen who is actually asked to take on the responsibilities of a central midfielder. He is almost redundant picking the ball up in huge spaces in our back line just because he can’t be trusted to recieve the ball in pressure areas.
Imagine how much better we would be if there wasn’t a clown next to him.
I’m unable to see what Partey brings to the table to make fans so excited about him
I know bruv. Sky and BT subscriptions are hella expensive.
Just stream it free though. No one will judge you.
What I’ve seen so far is
Injury prone
No surgical passing
Finishing is poor
What is good is that the team looks more defensively composed when he’s there and the other CDM can operate more freely. But we’ve done good defensive work Eben when he’s not been around this season (minis the ridiculous slip ups). So if he’s not bringing much to the attack, and without him we are defensively not very different, it doesn’t impress me. But hey, I want to change my mind. Willing to give it time.
I mean it’s your opinion, but… You’re judging a defensive midfielder’s finishing? That’s like saying You don’t rate saka because he’s not great at defensive headers in corners
From the matches I’ve watched, Partey’s a player who receives the ball on the front foot. I’m impressed by how many yards he gains from immediately taking a touch and shifting the ball in the direction of the opposition goal. It puts opposition on the back foot and creates possibilities for the attacking players to combine in multiple ways. Partey’s’ strong off or on the ball, rarely looses it on surging runs, knows when and how to play long diagonals on the counter. Generally, I think he’s an incredibly useful defensive shield who has lots of weapons on the counter.… Read more »
Maybe you’re right. I know my understanding of football at a very tactical level is iffy. My assessment is more closer to a new fan than that of a pundit I agree with that. Merely stating what I’ve seen so far. Some good counters here by Graham bort and goonshow. I’ll be watching his game more closely now.
No surgical passing? That’s exactly what Partey has impressed me with. Always wants to pass forward, and has a great disguise on his passes.
It might just be a bad start of the season for him which led to injury problems. His actual injury record is almost spotless.
Surgical passing? He’s played a few long passes which takes out half the opposing players.
I think Partey is world class at transitioning defense into attack. We will definitely see more of it in the coming months. His first/second touch beats the opposition’s pressing almost all the time.
So the bloke picked up an injury just after arriving – scandalous!!!
So he was recklesly rushed back into the team and aggravated it… he should have refused his manager’s election!
So he didn’t dance clear of Burnley’s press (compared to what Xhaka did!) and send Willian clear with a perfect through ball?
His finishing has been wild but one has to believe that will settle – he seems to consistently hit under the ball and sky it. He’s too good not to sort that out.
‘election’ = ‘selection’
No money for internet service either mate. I listen to the match on my transistor
I’m unable to see what you bring to the table to make fans so excited about you.
I agree I’m just a bit concerned with how casual he plays sometimes
Good win but we do make it hard for ourselves.
Cannot get holding and ESR back into the team quickly enough.
nonsense holding is fault for 2 goals of the top of my head, luiz and gabriel are our best defenders, esr however i like a lot just also like martin too so a tough one.
I really like ESR but he hasn’t been nearly as effective on the wing.
ESR in for the opening goal scorer? Or on the wing? Think we need Willian to never play again and ANYONE else who plays that position to give it a go.
Odegaard really shined today. Nice to have two options there but ESR has been poor on the wing.
Do you want to give an instance of ESR being poor on the wing RECENTLY without reading a cue card? And the boy was full of ideas today.
Did nothing except score an admittedly good goal (although their keeper was terrible). ESR is far superior to him and should always start in the middle ahead of him.
I rate ESR but I rate Odegaard too. There’s just favouritism being shown here as usual. Odegaard constantly asked questions of their defence yesterday by dribbling and playing balls in behind. He was our best player by a long shot. It’s like some people only watched the first 15 min… As soon as he scored he was dangerous throughout. I understand he’s not as effervescent as ESR but in a European away game sometimes a more measured approach is required.
Odegaard is not a PL player. Fancy footwork and an occasional incisive pass but too flaky and his style of play doesn’t allow flowing attacks. I’ll bet that Saka would rather play with ESR whose speed of thought and movement are superior. Apart from his goal he did very little as has been the case since his arrival. Gives the ball away too frequently. Arteta should be using loanees to fill gaps (and on bench) and developing the promising contracted players. Shiifting ESR out wide to accomodate a ‘name’ is poor team selection.
Is that the Willian who has 7 assists this season (more than any other Arsenal player) and landed the ball on Gabriel’s head for his goal last night? That Willian?
Asking for a friend.
Holding is overrated in this forum. He is slow and sometimes loses concentration. Arsenal played their two best central defenders Thursday. Gabriel will be huge for Arsenal.
I think holding needs a bit of a break. He’s played a lot of games along with Xhaka, both look quite mentally drained the over the last month.
Think this team would self-destruct when trying not to press the self-destruct button.
They would definitely slip on a banana skin whilst backing away from it before face planting the bloody thing.
Elneny’s goal was insane. Happy for him! 3 away goals is also brilliant, just hope we can not give away any more cheap goals!
Elneny literally only scores bangers
Outstanding, instinctive, rare long range scrap-shooting-style power-strike. Highly technical. Having said that, I unironically wish for Elneny to be Partey’s prefered partner until next summer’s great reset.
Hopefully he’ll get less stick from the haters on here… he is a loyal, solid servant of this club. And considerably better than Xhaka as partner to Partey.
Elneny got stick last time he played for being safe. In the matches since safe would have won us the points.
He knows how to score beautiful goals. I find him very good for us. But he can be very safe most times..
Yes, he is the back playing king, much as Arteta was himself. The brilliant goal was really surprising.
Both Xhaka and Luis are way worse than Mo’Nenny at reversing our momentum… check the stats. Mo always looks for the forward ball – yes, he does pass it back but that’s often a result of a lack of movement up front.
I thought Ceballos actually had a good game except for the mistake ofcourse.
Watching the replay, I can’t even fault Ceballos for it. That ball should never have been played to him. It was a more egregious mistake on Leno’s part than the ball played to Xhaka against Burnley.
Give Olympiakos credit for executing the trap. Had Ceballos turned away from Araba’s pressure, there was another defender who would have taken possession within a second. Leno didn’t see it, but still could have gotten away with the poor decision to pass, had he done so with pace. As it was, the slow ball allowed Araba to close Ceballos down. So fault Leno for bad decision making and poor execution.
To paraphrase Arteta- “We have to stop the mistakes.” Oh boy, do we.
The goalie has the best view when assessing risk. Leno has been taking mistakes the last couple of games. Players around him can’t have the confidence if they have a goalie that keep making unwise decision. Martinez would have given the defence more confidence.
Agreed – watched it a few times now and it’s hard to fathom what Leno was thinking.
FIrstly – he wanders right out of the box and to the right of his goal, ensuring he’s in no-mans land if something goes wrong…
Then he eschews the blindingly obvious ball up the right flank, and another option to Gabe on the left, preferring to sell Ceballos down the river with that suicide pass!
I watched it maybe 20 times after. The more I see it the more it is harder to blame him. Not great, but por under MASSIVE pressure. Leno needs to make better decisions. And at what point does some blame go to the manager on that? We’re forcing it out too much. That is clearly by design.
Leno is so overrated.
I don’t think the team recognized that Olympiakos had transitioned from its slow start, and had sped up their play and defensive pressure. Arsenal failed to match the tempo.
Regardless, Andrew and James ought to revisit their recent response to a listener who also questioned the “play from the back philosophy”, to paraphrase “Arsenal had the personnel to play from the back.”
There are both technical and mental attributes needed to be successful with this approach. We seem to failing on the latter.
I fully agree. Players don’t have it under their skin, and stop making themselves playable when they tire. Tierny and Gabriel are good at it, Bellerin and Ceballos less so.
I love his goal celebrations.
I was baffled when the commentators said that Willian had an excellent 1st half
Willian dos what he does. He helps retain possession, his positioning is good – tactically sound, but he adds nothing to flair and dynamism in attack, offering nothing “outside the box” (or inside it to ride the pun further). No wonder mikel loves him. Sums up mikel’s overall gamelan to a tee…
I think it is a fair comment. Not sure why the down votes.
Possibly because we should judge each performance on it’s merits? Willian was unspeakably shite for the first few months but his last couple have shown a definite assertiveness and increase work-rate.
Credit where it’s due… even if it’s a small improvement, it’s moving in the right direction and we should all be thankful for that.
We’re stuck with him, and his wage. Better that he contributes, surely?
So your saying because he has gone from rubbish to bang average he should continue to take game time from Martinelli, ESR, and Pepe. For me that is the problem with Willian.
I wasn’t, because I agreed. Willian didn’t do all that much that stood out but consistently made the right decisions and helped our attack.
Consistently making the right decisions is a great asset just look at a player like milner
Milner contributed so much more to ‘pool (physicality, leadership, a tireless engine/workrate, defensive solidity, under-rated left footed delivery) in addition to just positioning and consistently good decision making though. Willian needs to do more than just make good decisions with the ball. I’d also argue that on a couple of occasions today when things opened up, he still played the safe pass/option, which was maybe not always the right decision.
I’m not convinced it was entirely his fault. I think Leno’s pass to him was quite poor. It was a bit over hit making it tricky to control, not the best when that sort of pass arrives at the same instant as the player closing you down.
Didn’t Elneny, ESR and Pepe came on, in the same stoppage?
That extra couple of seconds that Elneny was on the pitch was long enough for him to receive a rating.
We could be formidable if we stop shooting ourselves in the feet every game. A lot to like about the performance. Lots of good individual performances. Odegaard showed some lovely touches after his goal. Gabriel back to his great early season form. Tierney relentless as usual. Good game from Hector. etc
Will be interesting to see which left footed center back that starts on Sunday.
Yeah easily odegaards best game for us. Really drove on and showed moments of quality. In fairness any player would need a bedding in period and I feel he has been reasonably good.
I thought he was dominant today, though with one incredibly stupid and dangerous pass (apparently a contractual requirement of all Arsenal players) and one short period where he seemed temporarily to lose impetus. He turned up all over the pitch, won the ball, carried the ball, moved the ball well. His inclination to take touches has needed a few games to find a balance with the need to move the ball quickly, but I think it is happening. A very good player.
Really didn’t see any of that. Dude is very very average and shouldn’t start ahead of either ESR or Pepe.
I’ve never seen writers qualify assists more than these guys do every time Willian does something god. It’s quite laughable.
Sure, he made the lead the club in assists, but they weren’t good assists so it doesn’t count!!!
Yeah, Willian had really quite a good game. The ratings here often seem to be a reflection of the writer’s likes and dislikes rather than any attempt at watching the game and objectively evaluating performances.
Elneny, for example, could score a hat trick of 30-yard overhead kicks and get a 6.5, largely because of the frankly mythical idea that he’s “workmanlike” and “dependable” and never passes forward. Once blogs has made his mind up, the ratings are predictable without watching the game.
Yeah (and I am actually paraphrasing Blogs), it’s almost as if the ratings reflected a particular individual’s assessment rather than some objective truth.
Sadly agree. My favorite Arsenal blog by far, but feel let down by the subjective (& overarching) views.
Everything is subjective, nobody’s forcing you to agree with the rating (hence the option…)
I do not feel that the ratings are predictable, but rather the players. Honestly, you won’t get much else from Willian. About half his assists this season have come from corners (and 3 from one game, so his stats are really inflated); ok, that is not bad in the sense that it is creating goals, but it’s not like these corners couldn’t have been taken by anyone else. Honestly, do you really feel like he deserved a 7, 8? Because he has been usually mediocre, even if he produces the occasional assist. I feel like there’s a funny dynamic at… Read more »
I think Willian has been terrible. I just think we should acknowledge when he’s good, like tonight.
Agree with Frederick completely. Willian has obviously been disappointing. However, he does lead the team in assists and I literally can’t think of one player on the team (perhaps bar Saka) who could deliver the cross he did today for his assist. Feel free to say it was all Gabriel, but when someone has almost ten assists on the season – perhaps it’s not all some miraculous accident…
Totally agree with the sentiment, and in fairness Willian’s recent upturn in performance has been pretty widely acknowledged by commenters and writers alike on here. Having said that, I didn’t think Willian’s performance was all that great today. In the second half he received the ball a lot in dangerous positions near the arc at the top of their box (zone 14) and never looked like being able to make anything of those opportunities, unlike Ødegaard (or ESR when playing the #10 role). His assist was also just also just a looped cross and there is no way he is… Read more »
The one thing I’ll say about these corners–because it’s not like they’re incredible or anything–is that I distinctly remember for much of the first half of the season where it felt like no one could even get a corner kick into the box.
So, to damn with faint praise, at least he’s doing that. And we’re seeing how useful even average corners can be.
That cross from the short corner today was excellent. If Gabriel didn’t get it it was headed straight for Auba. Right amount of pace and whip. Very hard to defend.
To be fair, we’ve been rubbish at getting the ball into the box at corners, so although I’m not Willian’s biggest fan it’s nice to see him putting a good ball in, and he’s improved a lot. Whether he deserves to start every game is another question but at least he’s not a liability like he was. Progress.
Maybe we have a different definition of “good”. His movement (or lack thereof) in the first half was just awful. Tierney is the only reason anything productive came out of that side of the field. He is terrible.
Willian was shit. Odegaard was average. Both should be on the bench with ESR and Pepe ahead of both of them.
Olympiakos can hardly banter us out of this one can they? CAN THEY???!
We can always find a way to achieve maximum banter
Bonus Rating: 10/10. The scowl the Olympiakos keep was giving his defenders could curdle milk, as if Odegaard’s goal was THEIR fault!
Partey and Willian deserve more than 6 for me and Elneny more than 6.5 surely??
I actually think Willian played well tonight. Although he didn’t play many final balls, he linked up play well and released Tierney a few times.
I defended Leno for what happened at Burnley but he’s got no excuse here. Not only was Ceballos under a lot of pressure, the pass to him was actually short and that’s what allows their striker to knick it. Really poor from us again there.
He was absolutely at fault for Xhaka’s fk up too.
Bellerin made a fantastic goal saving block at 1-1 which turned the game not some random block late on. Can you imagine any other set of fans discussing that after a 3-1 away win in Europe?!! Come on guys I know we made mistakes but it was a great win if we can’t celebrate that when will we be happy?!
I think there is a lot to be said by being realistic. Yes be happy, but there were some tragic moments in that game that need to be addressed despite the win.
The ratings are ludicrously harsh here. Some of the performances were excellent, e.g. Gabriel and Tierney. Sometimes I wonder how closely blogs is watching the game, because the ratings seem so phoned in and dependent on the scoreline/big moments.
If the three excellent chances that KT provided had been put away, would he still have got a 7? He almost singlehandedly provided our attacking threat in the first half.
We play like a team crying out for an old school centre forward who can score with his head. Mr Luiz .. no more knuckle frees ever again please! Great win.
relevant username
Sad to say Auba has been generally awful this year.
The Good: How nice to win a game in which we did not play especially well. It was made better for me by getting scoring from unexpected contributors. We need more of that.
The Bad: We could have conceded 3 goals on abysmal mistakes. We need less of that. PLEASE.
Wonderfully concise summary mate! Spot on.
Aside from the goal, which I seemed a fluke, I thought Odegaard made life difficult for his collaborators on the right. He’s extremely left footed. That by itself isn’t fatal. Never looking to his right side and being extremely left footed is. How many times did he miss seeing an overlapping Bellerin or Saka? Lots. After awhile the defenders didn’t bother to account for the overlap and simply clogged the middle passing lanes. It made us more ponderous than usual. Odegaard was leaning back a lot when he took the shot that scored. I bet he mishit it otherwise his… Read more »
I thought he got better after his goal, but I think you’re right that he can sometimes stifle the attack. I like him a lot as a player, but I feel like in terms of what this team needs, ESR–with his more front-footed, marauding approach to the No. 10 role–bring some more needed elements to the squad. Part of the issue with Odegaard is that I think the balance is off when he plays alongside Xhaka and Willian. All guys who are very good at retaining possession, but two of them are quite one-footed, and all three seem to rely… Read more »
Hard to argue with either of these posts.
But I think worth adding that Odegaard has been in the team 2 months.
At this level it takes much longer to bed in than that. Sadly I think we will never see the best Odegaard could offer us.
ESR back in for me. Every game he can play.
Absolutely. ESR and Pepe to start over Odegaard and Willian any day.
Xhaka ‘good at retaining possession’ ??? I have lost count of the number of times he’s been pickpocketed due to his creaky one-footedness!
Perhaps Blogs can get his mobile number for you, and you can share your most helpful pointers with him before Sunday?
10 out of 10 for Gabriel Martinelli for his greeting to Mohammed Elneny coming off
the field after the game. If he gets to play, we’ll be looking at 10 plus.
It’s good to win, but it didn’t feel convincing in any way. Spare a few good individual moments (and ones we got away with), not too pleased.
Also, how can Pepe get more game time? He’s giving defenses more to think about and Saka has looked a bit burnt out the past few games.
Or, crazy idea, maybe bench Willian?
Yeah deffo. Pepe looked fresh and menacing in his 10 mins – offered more than Saka today.
I think Willian’s attributes have been hard to spot through the fog of the first 6 months where he stunk out the place.
But he’s not a bad player and is in some good form and Arteta clearly likes the tactical stability he brings.
But good god I prefer Pepe as a starter. I’d rather drive my Pigani Zonda* to the shops knowing I may crash into a tree and die in a horrible ball of fire than take the Volvo that will get the job done but nothing more.
*I drive an Astra 😩
What a strange analogy. You’d be willing to risk your life to have a more fun drive to the shops? I’m sure it’d be really pleasant waiting in traffic, negotiating speed bumps and driving round a car park to find a parking space in that Zonda.
Actually, that’s exactly what it’s like watching Pepe.
Frustrating, impractical, sometimes completely pointless. But every now and again, your Pagani bangs one into the top corner and you remember why you bought it.
I am happy with the win…but I am getting a p***ed off with Arteta tactics. Not sure if it’s by design, but we play boring football atm. Willian and Odengard slow everything down. We started playing fast, one touch football earlier in January, then we take the players who made us click and bring the slow boring football in – each player takes 3-4 touches before releasing the ball. I am still supporting the team but starting to dislike Arteta as a coach. He has done a good job in making us tactically solid but he doesn’t feel like a… Read more »
Underwhelming performance. We should be rolling teams like that. But we made heavy weather and on evidence, stupid suicide football still on Arteta’s menu. 1) Leno – Decent outing. Wasn’t tested too terribly much. 2) Bellerin – Thought he was good today going forward. One very good opportunity (for Auba?) first half with an accurate cross for a header. One memorable on from byline across goaline that Auba could not /did not react to. Again some want to see the back of him but for me, it depends on how much he might fetch. If the price isn’t high, may… Read more »
Almost forgot Bellerin made a critical block too. As mentioned, if we don’t fetch price with him, does not make sense to sell. We will likely have to output higher than usual price to attract in an equivalent replacement (Unless we use Chambers) And as mentioned yesterday, we have as is scant resource, a thus far poor return on sales, are 40m out on Partey and have at least 4 other priority positions to fill including likely at keeper, striker and 2 in midfield (Maybe we might be able to afford one of Ceballos or Odegaard but likely not both)… Read more »
I was hoping to be able to rate Sokratis for old time’s sake.
I think Papa Sok should pack one of his old team shirts for next week and walk into the home dressing room, just for a laugh.
This links been hiding.
Well played today. You can see how much the team love Elneny
I did the full “OooooohHOOOHOOHOOO” when Elneny’s shot went in
Three brilliant goals today! The scapegoats: Bellerin & Willian were solid. Leno and Ceballos share responsibility for another cartoonish goal. Sokratis told his mates who our true danger man is—Saka got kicked all over the park. Gabriel & Partey still have great value to the team even though they’re still not in top form. Odegaard, salvaged a mediocre performance with a wonder strike. Elneny—when will the disrespect of this player ever dry up..Look at Xhaka and Ceballos recently and you’ll know why the ‘El-sideways’ nonsense needs to walk…how many goals has Elneny directly cost us in his Arsenal career? Not… Read more »
This Odegaard hype is killing me. He missed a sitter very early. Gave the ball away multiple times nearly costing us goals. Hits a hard shot that their keeper waved at with one hand just over his head and scored. Mostly slows everything down. And yet, MOTM??? C’mon.
Yup- blogs has a thing for him not sure why.
Thought the ref had a great game. Generally made the right calls and was barely noticeable for most of the night – what a difference to the refs in England which always seem to make themselves the talking point of every game.
Leno should be very worried about Matt Ryan who is very, very good with the ball at his feet. In fact, I think he’s genuinely two-footed. I’m sure that’s why Arteta bought him.
I genuinely hate this ‘play out from the back’ tactic, it scares the hell out of me every single time.
Leno… 2nd time…
Elneny and his rocket brings back memories. Back in the days when they first joined and scored some thunderbolts, i thought our midfield generals of xhaka and elneny would offer athletism, alonso type passing, and 20 goals from CM (with 5-8 from outside the box).
Would really like to see Mo get a run of games next to Partey – there’s a very solid player in there. Just never gotten a chance between lack of game time and lack of support from the haters.
Good thinking. I wonder how he’d do in the xhaka role. His passing % is very high and he plays goodsafe passes, so playing out of the back is good for him. He can drop into CM like how xhaka does. He has the athletism to cover left back when thierny bombs forward.
I don’t remember him doing stupid things or self destruct like xhaka consistently does
Good win aside from the mistake. We can’t be doing that against Sp*rs.
I have a feeling it will be Rangers next if both get through. The media would love the Everton/Liverpool side story with the managers.
Whoever we get next round it’s going to be tough.
A lot of good teams left in the competition.
We’ve shown a couple of times in the last few seasons that we can go far in this competition. It’s just getting over the last couple of hurdles. Hopefully the FA Cup win will stand us in good stead.
Arteta was a Rangers man before Stevie G!
good point. 🙂
Blogs your determination not to give Willian due credit for the assist on our second goal is slightly mad.
That’s a very tidy ball for any player to attack and if Gabrial doesn’t do what he did then it is falling neatly into the midriff of Auba. I feel if it were either of the fullbacks behind that pass your not taking away from their contribution
Fair to ask that question of what is an assist with the tierney goal in the Benfica game…. But that there is definitely an assist.
Martinelli is not being given chances
Enjoyed the win tonight , odegaard was quality , but gotta cut out the stupid mistakes or the scum Olympic diving team ie Kane and son will rip us a new one
Spot on James
Ratings a bit all over the place Blogs! Mo’Nenny gets the same as Xhaka and less than Hector? Luis rated above average? Almost handed them a goal, repeatedly stopped on the ball and hit numerous misplaced passes… average at best. Mo’Nenny wasn’t on for long but did not put a foot wrong, and putting that same foot through that thunderbolt may well have gotten us through to the Quarters. Xhaka didn’t make any clangers but he remains achingly slow and, for the half dozen good through balls he delivers, he dead-stops far more potential transitions and just sends it backwards!… Read more »
I think Arseblog’s got a downer on Willian. He’s improved the over the last 3 games or so: made some good forward passes and runs. Think he’ll contribute more as he settles in
Your agenda against Willian is a bit tiresome now. It was a good ball in and a great header from Gabriel. Give him his props when its due because you definitely let him have it when he is rubbish.
Started very well and dominated the early exchanges so were good value for our lead. Thereafter, for 20 minutes we looked like the closet bottle jobs we always were and made a toothless vegan opponent look like a ravenous carnivore. His cracking goal aside, Odegaard flatters to deceive. Hand on heart, we would all agree that Luiz, Willian, Xhaka, Elneny and Ceballos are talented players but can you really trust them or believe they are going to take us to the next level? No coach can put talent into a player but given that Arteta can only manage this squad… Read more »
How much longer do we have to watch that waste of space Luiz in our strip? This is Mustafi #2. We cannot be a top 4 team with players like Luiz on the pitch.
Saka was our biggest threat 1st half, easily a 7 just based on that.