Dortmund got diddled to put Arsenal in a strong position in their Champions League group.
Here’s how the players rated.
Wojciech Szczesny: 8/10 – Made two big second half saves, from Reus and Bllakvlclakclakysksllski, which kept the scores level. He’s become very important to the team this season.
Bacary Sagna: 7/10 – Solid, gave it everything as usual.
Per Mertesacker: 8/10 – Some fantastic tackling, great heading and reading of the game, and was in no way lucky not to give away a penalty late on. Lewandowski got exactly what he deserved for his diving all night.
Laurent Koscielny: 8/10 – Magic again. Got absolutely flattened by Weidenfeller and should have had a penalty. After coming back on he made two outstanding clearances inside 10 seconds. Sums him up.
Kieran Gibbs: 7/10 – Didn’t get forward much, and left a bit exposed at times, but did well overall.
Mikel Arteta: 7/10 – Got an early yellow but showed his experience as Lewandowski tried to get him a second yellow. Made some important clearances.
Tomas Rosicky: 8/10 – Ran his floppy-haired hole off again, always looking to press, made about 156 sliding tackles and was well involved in the Arsenal goal.
Aaron Ramsey: 7/10 – Once more a bit quiet but you just can’t stop this man scoring. Brave header too.
Santi Cazorla: 7/10 – Found little to work with from an attacking point of view but worked hard.
Mesut Ozil: 7/10 – Gave the ball away a lot, sometimes in quite dangerous areas, but also gave us our best outlet at times. Enigmatic.
Olivier Giroud: 7/10 – Put himself about but found it hard to keep hold of the ball. Big, big header for the Arsenal goal, that’s another assist for him for this season.
Subs
Nacho Monreal: 6/10 – He’s a very useful substitute, providing good defensive cover in games like these.
Thomas Vermaelen: n/a– Not on long enough
Nicklas Bendtner: n/a – Not on long enough
Bonus rating
Robert Lewandowski: complete twat/10
And yes, I realise some of the marks might be a bit high, but we just beat Dortmund. Enjoy it.
Feel free to debate and discuss in the comments, but please read the comment policy first and don’t get angry with each other, or me, about imaginary points.
Clippety clippety-Klopp
The Arse ran down the clock,
And Robert kept falling down,
Like a bit of a clown,
Clippety clippety-Klopp!
Sounds like a symphony to my ears.
BOOOM! High five!
thats tonight’s song for my 6 month old..
Well played my jolly friend. And also The Team.
1-0 To the Arsenal.
Need more thumbs here. TOP QUALITY.
smashed the kop and went top.
dortmund was our next stop.
that man ramsey came on top….
sorry it had to be you klopp.
but your man lewandowsky?, what a flop!
and fuck alan hansen- (for some reason).
Fucking Shakespeare
Gibbs has a halo over his head
Is he the son of bergkamp?
How cool is that… He deserved a higher rating as well. The work he did was tremendous ..
At the risk of a good down thumbing, if you watch their best chance again (Mkewhateverthefuck), Gibbs got himself caught too high up the pitch and then made pretty much no attempt to get back when we lost the ball. Nearly a costly blip, I thought he did well apart from that. However, Gibbo gets an extra point in every game in my book for the tackle he made against West Brom two seasons ago….got us in the Champions League and from there, we are now here….top of the league, top of our group. Need to call it out in… Read more »
Agreed. Helped too by the goal from Andre Santos so he deserves an extra….oh wait.
Mertesacker was amazing!
But he’s not as good as Baines!
“You hear me Hodgson? Baines!”
Goddamn it you guys please. Shhhhhhh! They’ll break him.
That was meant for the Gibbs comment but oh well!
I’ve learned to reserve my comments about Ozil having an off night until my second viewing of the game. This guy does little things so well and so casually that you sometimes don’t realize just how good he’s been at first look.
honestly, Ozil was easily our worst player tonight & it seems a lot of people are being blinded by how average he has been for the last 4 games because of his name.
obviously I will be thumbed down for telling the truth, but I’m sure if Ramsey or Walcott had been that average they would have to fear for their live
I noticed that he tracked back on any Dortmund breakaway. It was as if he decided to personally ensure that we didn’t get caught “naively” as we did in the first match. Not sure if he was following orders from Wenger or it was a personal decision to take responsibility for that but I remember st least twice seeing him in our box harrying Dortmund attackers.
could not agree more – when people say he drifts out of games – no he doesn’t. he’s just doing something different than what you might have expected.
Been thinking about it for a while. Maybe its the reputation and price tag, so it was assumed he would come in and dominate everything, so when he doesn’t its clearly a bad game. His rep is based on the flashy stuff, like feeding the Madrid show ponies lots of goals, so it seems if he doesn’t get an assist he’s not doing his job. The truth is more that some people still criminally underestimate the rest of our midfielders, and the reason he doesn’t stand out is because the guys around him are are that good. Equally, our system… Read more »
“easily our worst player” yet he still set up the goal.
I think Per deserves more, he was absolutely outstanding today. MOTM
I just can’t agree with these ratings. Poor performance until after the goal when we subsequently made sh*t of Dortmund for the remainder of the match.
sorry, but you need to have a bit of a reality check here – we just beat dortmund away, one of the top 4 teams in the world with a fantastic home record. we’ve got a barebones squad with so many first team players missing that we’ve not been able to rest and rotate anybody, and off the back of another great win against liverpool we went to one of the strongholds of european football and got an incredible result. no, we weren’t able to play a fluent game for the first 2/3 but we hung in there and did… Read more »
We won the game without Flamini, Walcott, Poldi, Wilshere, AOC and Suarez……err Sorry Suarez can’t play until Jan. Can’t wait for the returns of these lot.
Bring on the mancs!
Please stop mentioning Suarez. We don’t want him at the Arsenal, thank you.
Speak for yourself old man.
Suárez. Hahahaha, that gave me a laugh.
It is called tactics, tactics, away tactics. Kapish?
How can any Arsenal supporter come online to have a dig at that performance…. Surely a Spud
its scary just how badly you’ve missed the point. Arsenal went with a tactical setup designed primarily not to lose (the win is a bonus, but lose last night and we were screwed). The ‘poor performance’ was 2 of the best midfields in Europe (the World?) dueling it out, with neither one getting any real dominance. The home team might have got a slight edge, but they still only were allowed 3 shots on target all game. The end of the game is what happens when you play this Arsenal team. Most of the time we can sustain our game… Read more »
“Arsenal cant beat big teams”
COYG lets bring our momentum to untied!
I guess we’ll never know how good Arsenal are until we play someone above us in the league 🙂
I see what you did there XD
I hope this won’t happen all season 🙂
@heroldgoon: Big LOL there for that comment, can’t stop laughing. 😀
Some people are so insatiable and ungrateful. This men are working their socks off for our club and getting good results, yet some idiots are not satisfied with that!
May be until we play a club above us in the league table…dunno?! Just as @Heroldgoon says
Great smash and grab 3 points from the Gunners, Ramsey just can’t stop scoring and our defence just keeps getting better and better. Unbeaten away in 15, now let’s make it 16 in style at Old Trafford with an emphatic win to leave Man U hoping to finish in the top 4 and strengthen our position as League leaders, COYG!!!!
Well its natural to question a team’s title ambitions after only beating Spurs… But now after brushing aside the Pool and dealing with the diving Lewandowski, there is no reason why we can’t take United to the cleaners.
When we played United back in May under Fergie, they could just about deal with us. Its our best chance in a long while to go take 3 points and really take a strong lead in the title race.
Was that a deliberate use of “Untied” as a reference to the way it’s all unravelling at Manure?
I do think Sunday’s game may well prove the most difficult of all our recent games. Van Penis et. al will be out to try and get their season back on track…
If anything, some of the marks aren’t high enough. Mertesacker was at least a 9/10 for me, one of the best defensive displays I’ve seen from him ever. Won every header, made tons of clearances, stuck his gangly leg out a few times, and didn’t put a foot wrong. MOTM for sure.
Reus charging in and Mertesacker just casually sticking out a leg to take the ball was hilarious and sums up his whole match. BFG.
That was a brilliant tackle. So casual. Timed to perfection…
…then suddenly the referee remembered he had a whistle and thought he should use it a bit more.
Tosser.
Another Merteception for the scrapbook http://arsenalist.com/f/borussia-dortmund-vs-arsenal/gif-mertesacker-says-my-ball.html
‘Nein!’
I need to stop shouting this when BFG makes a tackle like that. The wife is looking at me funny.
And they’re breaking, this looks dangerous “insert cunts name” is bearing down on goal…
BFG: “Das ist mein Ball”
Oh. Well. What was all the fuss about?
He does that kind of tackle so regularly, I think it should be officially called ‘doing a Mertesacker’ or ‘Mertesackering’
a Nope! moment if ever ive seen 1, “i’ll be having that laddie”
Agree completely. Mertesacker is a fucking Ent, who destroys the opposition attack by merely sticking out a leg.
Did I miss a goal 😉
the numbers aren’t a bit high…
I thought Dortmund played very well today, and we did very well as a team to contain them, even though it took a while to get our attack clicking.
I think we actually even had more possession, that is not beans
Wiedenshmiedenfellafellershite: c*nt / 10 for trying to smash Koscielny into a million pieces.
Koscielny: 10/10 for being made out of titanium, or yet an even stronger material scientists still haven’t found a word for.
hmmmm diamond perhaps
Koscielnium
Props to the ref, thankfully didnt let lewan-dive-sky antics fool him.
He confuses me i want to give him a 7/10 but then i remember some of the decisions he made or didnt make and i want to punch him right in the fucking face.
Rosicky is playing awesome football right now….
Full Time: Metallica 0-1 Mozart
Ah, “I hear a symphony”…
Mert and Kos absolutely outstanding.
Monreal gets a 7 for being on the field on this historic night (and making a couple of tasty interceptions late on) Aaron plays well over all and scores the winner….c’mon Blogs, must be an 8 Big Olivier, on his todd up front, winning loads of ball especially in the 2nd half, massive winning header for the goal…..got to be an 8 😀 What a massive shift put in by one and all, Ozil is one of the most stylish footballers on the planet and he chases 60 yards back into his box, to clear a dangerous cross…..that’s an Arsenal… Read more »
Let me know the next time a team goes to Bayern and Dormund and leaves with two clean sheets in the same year.. Just doesn’t happen.. Now it’s time to go up to Trafford and take a shit on their lawn.
Time to take a dump at old toilet
We showed some exceptional quality in our defense. Dortmund was dangerous but we fought well. Lewandowski especially looked more dangerous with his diving at some occasions. Overall, I am proud of the boys.
Moyes might take a leaf out of Lewandowski’s book and start with Ashley Young to earn themselves a penalty. Everyone knows United always get a penalty against Arsenal at Old Trafford. Has been happening almost every season since October 2005. Other c*nts like RvP and Rooney (who started this penalty tradition) may adopt trying to con Kosser into recklessly lunging in the box too. I am confident about Arsenal getting a result there, but United are a filthy lot.
Who’s the referee for the United game? Mike Dean I predict. The c*ntblister! (thanks Blogs for that!).
I was betting 50/50 on Dean (to screw us over) or Webb (do I need to say more?), especially as they are the only refs Riley has (Randomly 🙂 ) ever sent for us at OT
Instead its Michael Oliver. Interesting…..
Did some research and found out that Michael Oliver was the one who officiated our 1-0 win against the Spuds earlier this season. I remember him getting a lot of good calls right. Hopefully, the one at Old Trafford should be a fair game.
BFG was a beast today! really impress with his performance.
oooh boy.. van persie you better bring some daipers to the match this weekend cause its gonna be men shitting united!
I’d say Mertscielny combined 10/10 unbelievable defensive pairing.
Kosacker sounds better to me!!
sounds a bit russian lol
This match was like your classic poker game; the two managers were like oponents on the final table of the world series of poker, who will blink first? Klopp thought he was in control until we scored the first goal raising the stakes, he thought Wenger was bluffing and reraised the stakes then Wenger went all in and immediately lit his victory cigar.
On another note, the ref thought he was a Dortmund player since he was wearing black and yellow too
i prefer to think of it as check! annnnnnd MATE!
Alan Hansen’s a twat
I don’t know the context for your statement but I gave it a thumbs up anyway
Ditto. You should post that comment on every article.
Doesn’t that fall into the ‘John Terry’s a cunt’ category?
Did anyone else catch the end of the game when Arsene had a quick handshake with Klopp and walked off down the tunnel and Klopp looked after him with a look on his face that sort of said he expected something a little warmer? It was interesting that Klopp stayed on to shake hands with our players as well, but the boss didn’t. I know Borussia weren’t angels tonight, but we’re no strangers to the dark arts ourselves so it can’t have morally wounded Arsene or anything. I guess I just expected a bit more open camaraderie between two men… Read more »
I don’t think so mate. Arsene shook hands and Klopp looked away despondently. There’s nothing else Arsene could have done. Arsene then looked round to see if any of the other Dortmund staff wanted to share the love but there weren’t any about so he causally walked off. Nothing sinister at all.
Fair enough.
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/775095792.gif
This makes me happier than it should and I don’t even care
hahaha greatest GIF evar!
OMG This the funniest thing I’ve seen today.
Crestfalenstadion
The absolute definition of schadenfreude. Love it!
Made me choke. XD
simply epic
Is that the littlest Bee Gee in the front row?
Absolutely hilarious. My appreciation for it is tempered just a little though by the knowledge that it’s their reaction to Robben’s goal in the Champions League Final last season. I’ve got a soft-spot for Dortmund and can continue wishing them well now that we’re done playing them for a little bit and absolutely hate Bayern Munich.
I love Mertesacker. You won’t find a calmer center back than him. Had another one of those brilliant toe poke tackles tonight. Makes defending look so easy
I say it again, loved how Özil put his work in on defense when he realized he was kind of off offensively (weird way to end a sentence). Good to see that kind of heart in a player.
i agree, but i dont think the problem was Özil’s or cazorla’s ability today that made attacking a problem, but rather the closing down of them the second the got the ball by dortmond, even cazorla was tracking back, i personally can not pick a man of the match, i think they all played their hearts out.
Big per a big 10 simply awesome tonight him and Kos are totally dominating superstar strikers all the time now. Plenty of room in there pockets for van persie and rooney on Sunday.
What a great picture they look like they are ready for war apart from TR7 who looks like he’s ready to take a dump. Got to love TR7!!
Orchestra 1 Heavy metal 0
I was sure I’d see ratings for all players go all the way to 11! 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrVCjnRdB_k
Could not resist.
However irrelevant it is, a Spinal Tap really shouldn’t be voted down. Come on people.
Even at 33, you can still hear the sustain on Rosicky… he just keeps on going
Agree that Ozil gave the ball away a lot, but mostly in the first half. Thought he was excellent down the right in the second half. Also, in tight games I think he helps slow things down towards the end and is finally an Arsenal player who doesn’t mind taking the ball into the corner and running down the last few minutes. Really professional attitude in those situations.
except passing it offside to Ramsey when in the corner, I guess the moment got the better of their judgement
Mozart outrunning Reus! At 33 years Amazing!!
He can’t be 33, Bergkamp can’t take away the joy of watching my favourite player play for at least another 10 years for Arsenal. For me, he has been the most under-rated Arsenal player for the last couple of seasons. He is absolute class on the football pitch. Tonight, he was playing as if he wanted to take the Dortmund fans to the bygone era and make them remember why he was idolized in the Westfalenstadion, the way he out-paced Reus and made him foul his footballing idol was sublime 😀 Hope he signs and stays here till the time… Read more »
Little Mozart:
“Ryan Giggs? Frank Lampard?
Meh! You ain’t seen nothing yet!”
Watch this, you guys will love it.
http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/775095792.gif
Yes they do have a great atmosphere in the ground, but should they really be allowed a little fella with a microphone chanting? Bit of an unfair noise advantage.
Sorry I didn’t realize someone had posted it earlier.
Doesn’t matter, we can watch it a hundred times and even more. 😀
don’t worry mate, that will never get old
HUGE WIN!!!! We look SOLID at the back (three clean sheets on the bounce yes please) and withthe quality and crispness of our passing we will always have a chance no matter who we play. I agree with the comment in the report that we missed Walcott though. It was too congested to play through them, especially given that we quite rightly weren’t overcommitting, but it meant we always ran out of ideas once we were in the final third. Enigma is a fair wassessment of Ozil- he may often prove to difficult to rate I fear. In many ways… Read more »
To be honest, I can’t imagine this team without Mikel. Class, world class and I think he really deserved for 8. Anyway, it’s great to watch Tomas in that shape, marvellous!
Steve Bould 10/10
Arsenal make history in germany
BBC 5Live after match talk about german supporters and cost of matches
Bunch of Wankers!!
Boycott the bbc
This is to put my earlier statement of: “Alan Hansen’s a twat” in context (should it need context?) Type the twats name in google along with telegraph and champions league predictions cos I can’t work out how to copy and paste the link on my Alan Hansen of a samsung phone
First team to get a clean sheet at Dortmund’s home ground in 60 games. HA!
Think you mean #AHA!
Our defence was unbelievable tonight!
Our spirit right he way through the team was unquenchable!
And with Jack, Theo, Poldi, The Ox, Flamini to return our attacking options will be mesmerising!
Per MOTM….and great defending overall.We Are Arsenal,We Are Football.
Mental Strength – 10/10
\m/
now show tat muppet Evra that the boys have grown.
10 marks to G Neville for defending BFG’s arm & calling out divers as Naymar & Young. Guess the English media will have to look for a new angle to obsolve Young of his diving. Maybe do a piece on how his diving has increased when foreign players like RVP & Kaghawa joined. The wankers! I’m sure there will be atleast one diving attempt by them in our game & you could be sure that we would have suffered the consequences with the Ref wanting to please Red Nose. Now that he is gone, hopefully all 50-50 decisions don’t go… Read more »
Sorry all never thought I’d get to this stage in my life, I really didn’t, but Neville is a bloody legend. What an analyst, was wasted as a footballer. Now bring on all the thumbs down, I won’t be swayed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjPVZwhddG4
by no means, i actually do agree, i think he’s usually fair, get him as an extra coach? (now im gunna get thumbed down)
Lewandowski is a cunt.
Am I The only one who had bit of a grin seeing Lewandowski dive constantly. Made me proud of our boys. Shut down a fantastic offensive team to the point in which they felt the only chance they had was diving.
“our technical superiority will come though on the end, and it did”. – said arsne with the himt of a sly smile.
absolute legend
Rosicky’s footballing age seems to be getting younger and younger as he gets older and older.
The fitness and pace on the guy for a 33 year old is outstanding. Loved that the Dortmund fans gave him the ovation he deserves. What a player. What a gooner.
Love our little Mozart. Was an absolute dynamo today
Agree all around, although he was off today on the photo taking seeing as he was caught out mid-blink in the picture above. I’m sure that is one he’d like to have back.
The curious case of Thomas rosicky
The curious case of Tomas Rosicky
The curious case of Tomas Rosicky 🙂
Klopp – 10/10
For managing to fit 10 kilos of amphetamine in one nostril
For the first time in manh a year I’m positive about a trip to Old Trafford 🙂
Arsedtotheteeth: “I just can’t agree with these ratings. Poor performance until after the goal when we subsequently made sh*t of Dortmund for the remainder of the match.” I’m sorry my friend but this is not FIFA14. We just went to Germany and beat Champions League finalists, a team that beat Madrid 4-1 at the very stadium we just won in, a team that had scored in all but one of their previous 60 home games, a team that has never been beaten by an English team at home. Until today. Grit, determination, defensive discipline and heart to believe we could… Read more »