Arsenal moved to within a point of the top four with a 2-1 win over bottom of the league Huddersfield today. Goals from Alex Iwobi and Alexandre Lacazette put the Gunners 2-0 ahead, only for a Sead Kolasinac own goal in injury time to prevent a first away clean sheet of the season.
The three points were very welcome, the performance a bit underwhelming as the home side had more possession, more territory, more attempts on goal – and they’ve only won twice this season.
Plenty for Unai Emery to ponder over a glass of rioja but he can do it with the comfort of a first away win since November.
Read the Huddersfield 1-2 Arsenal match report and see the goals here
Here’s how the players rated tonight.
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.
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not having watched the game it’s easier to ignore the performance, but i’d like point out some obvious things: we’ve won, that’s 3 out of 3 points we could have got. this was a game we had to win, and we did that. we know we’ve got different kinds of problems, but we’re not gonna solve them before may. all we can do until the end of the season is try to get as many points as possible and hope the others drop some. and today, we did our part. of course a convincing win would have been more assuring… Read more »
A welcome three points but, on this showing, a great deal of improvement is required.
Quite a recurring theme this season.
We lacked a bit of class that a Ramsey or Ozil could provide.
Why Mustafi every game? If he was a golfer, you’d say he has the yips.
that could be a fortune cookie reading
Deep against Huddersfield? I liked it better when we went balls out all out attack. This is shit to watch
New standards mate. The last defender of our values left at the end of last season.
I think you both might be forgetting how ‘well’ we played going forward away from home the previous season and a half.
I agree. It’s sad to watch Arsenal play so defensively like this. Especially against a team who has not scored a goal for almost 10 hours apparently.
Funny thing is we always seem to be the respite team. Everyone seems to break their jinx when the play Arsenal.
They* … Apologies
Funny how soon George Graham and “Fortress Highbury” are forgotten!
One – nil to the Arsenal!
Unfortunately football matches have to be won and win is what we did today. All successful teams are successful because even when they play poorly they come away with 3 points.
Let’s face it Huddersfield still haven’t scored in 10 hours we scored their goal for them!
Yeah we should go gung ho and win one away game all season like last year. What fun that was.
It’s ridiculous how forgetful some people are.
Did you even watch us last season?
Would really love for Emery to put out a positive attacking line up on Thursday after this dross display today.
In sky super 6 I had this as 0-1 to Arsenal, so 1-2 is not unexpected. Take the win, but a bit worrying how average we were at times.
Don’t really want to go hard on a young player but boy was AMN serving some dross shit Tonight. Might be the worst passer of the senior squad.
His attitude is worrisome too, leave the ‘ too cool for you ‘ to when you’ve become Cafu.
There’s a big player there , hope he sorts it out.
First game back from injury, played out of position (because he is deemed better than both the fit *actual* RBs at the club), got an assist, made 6/8 tackles and 12 ball recoveries against a very physical side. These are all facts. “His attitude is worrisome too…hope he sorts it out” – is your opinion, not fact and quite frankly it is trash. Just because he is composed, and doesn’t flap his arms around and shout at refs like some of the ‘Pashun’ merchants we have (hi Shkodran ?) does not mean there is an issue with him. It probably… Read more »
Wow ! ?
After the first para I was about to detail how I like AMN and point out the positives and negatives of his general play but don’t worry man , go personal and vent it out.
‘ Hot takes ‘ ??
But what is his best position? I think he’s too light/soft for midfield. Alternative winger maybe?
I’m genuinely not sure, but I look forward to seeing how he develops. I don’t worry too much about his size because he is young and will fill out. Also, if he can develop his reading of the game like prime Arteta/Torreira, he is quick enough to win interceptions and tackle by putting himself between opponent and ball. He could easily turn into the DM Arsene envisaged. Alternatively, he could be a great wing option on the right and alternate well with an attacking RB like Bellerin. His goal at Anfield, and even his assist yesterday highlight good movement and… Read more »
Like a prime Torreira? You mean a prime Torreira who’s only a year older than Maitland-Niles?
Like Iwobi, he’s at best lower Premier league quality.
The prime was before Arteta as that is who I was referring to. The additional usage of a slash made that clear. Reading comprehension John.
As for your opinion on two academy products who have made it to the first team of a ‘top 6’ team in spite of the odds…thanks for sharing(!)
The inclusion of a slash doesn’t definitively clarify that you meant only ‘prime’ Arteta to be fair. It kind of doesn’t detract from the point either way, either. If Torreira isn’t in his prime, you’re still referencing his ability now as a yardstick. He has been playing the same way for a few years now, so it’s not like he suddenly jumped up in ability in the last year, as if Maitland-Niles is likely to do likewise. I really don’t see the fuss with him, but maybe it’s just me. If it were down to me, I’d get a stupid… Read more »
Sir, that is *exactly* what it does. Definition: The Slash. or Virgule. A slash or slant or solidus or virgule [ / ] (take your pick of names) is used to indicate a choice between the words it separates. grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/marks/slash.htm If I meant ‘prime Torreira’, I would have typed the word twice or included the word ‘and’. Fair play if you don’t personally see the fuss, that is your prerogative. I just have to keep reiterating to so called ‘supporters’ here that he shouldn’t be given dogs abuse (and they probably don’t know as much as they think they do)… Read more »
I completely agree with you regarding AMN. The truth is, we’re not talking about an up-and-coming teenager here, we’re talking about a professional footballer who’s going to be 22 years old this year and yet no one even knows what his position is!
One thing that is for certain is that he is NOT a RB in any way, shape or form and it isn’t helpful to his development that he keeps being shoehorned in there.
Both he and Iwobi are frustrating – born and bred Gooner boys, clearly with no small amount of ability, but prone to disappoint: AMN with his persistent profligacy on passing (man, he gave it away a lot v Huds!) or at best, continued back passing; Alex with his recurrent laziness in doing anything remotely resembling defending! Yes, he seems to now be jogging back in defence more than he used to… but he STILL just does not ever put in a solid tackle!
Iwobi needs end product and decision making. That pass where the fullback overlaps can’t be his only asset. Kos was a beast. Laca has just become something else. He’s fading in energy due to doing too much. A burn out will affect his sharpness. Love the man. This team is a shambles. We played the 532 and got overun time and again with poor transitions and Emery did nothing to change that tactical error. I hope it’s that he has a lot of deadwood more than anything else. We are also reeling from xhaka’s ability to control the tempo which… Read more »
I WISH we would play the 3-5-2 when we play 3 at the back. But this was 3-4-3. And I think that’s part of the problem. It left us with just Guendouzi and Torreira to control the midfield, and in this league that isn’t enough against just about anyone.
We had a giant Attacking Midfielder size hole in the squad today. And gaps whenever one of the center mids pushed up at all.
Leno deserves more he and koscienly- were our best players.mikhitaryan and laca were the difference makers
Some are a little too high.
From todays performance some of the players showed that they are not even Huddersfield standard as Huddersfield were better in many areas of the game.
Elneny kola Maitland Niles iwobi mustafi deserve no more than 5s
Leno does not command his area the way I’d expect of a class keeper. Mustafi getting worse by the game – confidence shot or doesn’t care? AMN – this is the real world, not just pre-season knockabout Laca now coming so deep to create that he’s not able to be on the end of it but his work rate and skill is praiseworthy Micky – good return after long layoff Iwobi – end result not improving Kos – our only defender at present Torreira not now in his best position Guen – hope he can continue to improve Kola –… Read more »
Well done truther for mentioning mhki. Doesn’t get enough credit in my book. Admittedly I only saw the highlights but first thing I noticed was his importance in BOTH goals (not just the second goal Mr Arseblog!) The first goal showed his willingness to hit a first time pass to Kola that gave Kola time to hit the cross for Iwobi to score. I like Ramsey but he often takes two or three touches (nearly all with his right foot) thus slowing the attack. I know this might be controversial but dare I say it so does Ozil. Sometimes Ozil… Read more »
The worst parts for me is when we sit back and slowly allow teams like Huddersfield back into games, just as we did at Brighton. Once we get in front we should be looking to kill the game off with a few more goals. We are strong in attack so should be using that asset. No point in sitting back when you can’t defend.
If we could kill the game off just by trying to, we would. We did get forward, dangerously, several times in the second half, but the quality final ball wasn’t there. So I did not mind at all that we got behind the ball more often than not after the 2-0 lead. We were scored on when we relaxed and went after a third and got caught.
Why do you suppose the quality ball wasn’t there? Team selection? Formation? Tactics?
Yes.
Again, did you watch us last season?
Maybe give Kos a 7. But no other player in this lineup deserves more than 5. Absolute dross. There’s absolutely no reason for me to believe this squad is good enough for top 4. I am an Emery supporter, I thought he was starting to get somethings wrong and cost us a game or 2, but recently I decided to withhold on any judgment on the coach. The individual quality is so staggeringly poor, it effectively creates a smokescreen to whatever kind of coaching is being done. I still believe he’s a good coach but his circumstances are extremely difficult.… Read more »
“The individual quality is so staggeringly poor, it effectively creates a smokescreen to whatever kind of coaching is being done.”
Which is entirely bullshit. Individually, our players are not worse than Huddersfield’s players. So why were ours playing like a bunch of cunts? Coaching. They are out there without a solid game-plan or team setup. At the very least, our manager should be able to motivate and focus his players to do the basics right. Based on todays showing, doesn’t look like he can.
Hey I don’t know if you noticed but, we won, and Huddersfield didn’t, so we were worse than them because…? Because we won? Should we not have won? Are you complains that the coaching made us win? That the players played like a bunch of cunts to make us win? Should the coach stop coming up with tactics that win us games? Would that help him win this goddamn thankless battle some fans keep laying down for him? Are we really cross that we won? Do you remember when we couldn’t win an away game at all? Did you like… Read more »
Huddersfield only exist to enable us to break our away not-winning streaks, as last season. Not sure what we do next season when they’re gone.
Yeah I noticed. And it’s great we can win ugly. If you read again though, I have no complaints about winning, just the performance. If we can get both together over the next couple years that will be fantastic, because we can challenge for honours! 🙂
Phew that was a lot of questions you wrote there Parisian Weetabix, I’m not sure I got them all. But let me clarify a bit. I’m not in favour of #EmeryOut or anything stupid like that. And I do think he needs more time to work with the squad. It’s hard to coach properly during the season because of constant games and recovery. So I’m really looking forward to him having a good preseason (and hopefully a new defence!) to imprint his philosophy onto the team. However, I don’t think it’s unfair to suggest he show his philosophy during this… Read more »
It feels like every time Emery plays three at the back he’s trying to recreate that performance against Spurs (which I think was the first time he played that formation) and every time since then it’s been pretty awful. Not the defence specifically, although that’s not been great, but because it leaves us so short in midfield. Against City Guendouzi and Torreira were individually better than any of the opposition midfielders but were simply outnumbered. Same again today. The starkest demonstration was in the West Ham game where we were were awful until the switch to four at the back… Read more »
Looking back I think the only time we’ve started with four at the back in the league since early December was against Chelsea – one of our best performances this season.
Honestly, I think three at the back is just to cover for injuries. He’s never been a 3 at the back guy in his career and I doubt he’s come to the premier league and decided to start being one now. Ainsley and Kolasinac are both poor defenders and I think he trusts Mustafi about as much as we do. I’m sure that has more to do with the formation than it being indicative of what he really wants from us.
Emery did first use it before the defensive injuries hit, but after that it could have endured because of injuries as I say. The question is whether it makes sense even with these players. Everyone is rightly asking why we’re “sitting back” and inviting teams onto us when it kills our attack and our defence can’t handle it anyway. But this isn’t a player mentality thing, it’s a result of how we’re set up. Emery must believe it’s capable of more than it has been, and the only model of success was that first game.
Strangely defensive line-up, belaboured performance… But we got the 3 points away!
Let’s not forget Emery is managing a squad that produced an absolutely abysmal record on the road last season. We shouldn’t expect it to be easy.
Unlike you Blogs Thought Guendouzi was solid, ditto for Iwobi although a bit profligate near the goal. Mustafi is shorn of any confidence rn, could use a respite imo. Nice to have our Skipper back Boss thangs’
Guendouzi did seem to lose the ball more often than usual. Some of that is that this lineup hasn’t played together much and they’re not used to each other’s movement. Lots of misplaced passes. Huddersfield made it a chippy, laborious game, but we should have been able to pass them more easily. Well, three points.
But harsh on Kola. He also provided an assist. Needs to improve defensively but his attacking contribution was important in a game where we lacked creativity.
Well, his passing was off–way off. With his physicality, this is a game he could have shown in, but he didn’t.
His passing got us in trouble a lot of times. He and Ainsley gave the ball away far too much and left us vulnerable
To the point, I thought Mustafi gave the ball away so many times I thought for a moment that he was playing for Huddersfield. He is really bad and I would encourage Emery to try the young Greek defender a chance, for at least a half a game.
Brilliant win.
Top 4 here we come.
Stunning goals from Laca and Iwobi
Great assist from AMN.
Emery is gonna lead us to PL & CL glory next season.
Are you new to this whole Arsenal thing?
That’s the spirit. People forget that being a fan should be fun. Life is too short to get an ulcer over a game.
Kolasinac has huge qualities and huge flaws in equal measures. Iwobi was very good and a real threat, he’s ticking along nicely, he just need to take another step forward in his final action, but he’s winning me over. Maitland Niles was a little erratic, a lot of good stuff, but some terrible misplaced passes in dangerous areas, that against better opposition would have been punished, but I still think he’s our best option, and we should try and play him into some form at right back. Lacazette is a different player this season, he was timid last season, but… Read more »
We lacked midfield.
Absolutely no control.
Not sure why it is again…Mustafi’s fault.
Base on what nonsense are you giving Mustafi a 5 and Elneny a 6?
Ridiculous.
Mustafi made some very important tackles and clearances. Elneny took up oxygen.
You really need to be more balanced.
Mistakefi also induced heart palpitations every 5 mins…
Yea, lve always been wondering about this, especially with ratings for players with preconception, like ramsey, ozil, mustafi. How can you tell msutafi is THAT bad? Cause l thought he was decent, not good, I’d give him 6.
Same thing to say for Santori’s valuation of Elneny though.
Santori, watch the game again, then you would have to concede that overall Elneny was safer than Mustafi.
Not a bad result from the lineup we put out actually
I am tirred of this blog talking bad about kolasinac. Never point out the good stuf, only bad! There are players that play way worse than him.
Kolasinac is like our other defenders (apart from Kos). Doesn’t much like defending.
Haven’t been as underwhelmed watching Arsenal in a very long time. Yes we were inconsistent under Arsene in the last couple of seasons, but our football was rarely this lackluster
The ethos of the club is changing, and it’s not the kind of football that I love watching. That being said Emery must be given this summer window to get in some players and organise around a team and playing style that he’s comfortable with. Verdicts will be surely made by this time next year
Inconsistent? We won one away game last season and that was against Huddersfield with nothing to play for. I swear to god people have forgotten how bad we actually have been and think the attacking football died this season when last season was equally painful to watch. The difference is now when we play like shit we have the ability to grind out a result.
Mmm not convinced we are any better than last season. Still getting beaten by our main rivals. Still, more than willing to give Emery time and fingers crossed we bring in some defensive talent in the summer.
Clearly ratings here have previous bias and not entirely based on facts on the ground. How the headless chicken Elneny can rate higher than Mustafi is beyond me. I’d of course like to watch the match again but here are my own impressions, feel free to disagree of course : 1) Leno – Did OK. Came out quick to quash and earlier attempt at goal but wasn’t able to close out with the clean sheet. Parried the ball on one occasion right back to the striker. Some work to be done on that end. Catch perhaps? 2) AMN – A… Read more »
I suggest watching the Liverpoo game again, Torreira made the initial mistake for the Firmino solo goal but Mustafi and Sokratis were horrendous in their attempts to tackle after that. Mustafi has been a liability for the majority of his Arsenal career and that’s why he receives so much justified criticism. What a surprise that you mentioned Mahrez again in a post!
Start a blog, Santori.
Nah – start a relationship with Alex… and we can ALL have a break on here.
lol
Our defenders have placed a collective bet in the summer that we won’t keep a clean sheet away all season. What odds would that have been? Need more proof than Kola’s own goal in the 94th minute and the way he tucked it away? ?
I knew we would concede when Mustafi kept hoofing the ball upfield. Just no composure in our defending, no confidence. We’re lacking a leader at the back. Essential BFG sized hole has not been filled in. Holding was getting there — he has a proper defenders attitude. Monreal isn’t a centre back, and Mustafi isn’t really a footballer. This team is painful to watch away as no one wants to take control and calm the whole team down. And watching Iwobi stroll around for a couple of minutes before he knew he was about to be subbed was infuriating. Leave… Read more »
I realise it is too early to judge, but I find Suarez quite a disturbing signing. For now he looks quite Elneny with a predominance of sideways and backwards passing. It was a very good idea to make this loan only.
Both times he has played haven’t been the best times to judge him to be fair.
Getting overrun (not like Chelsea) by City.
Seeing out a physical away win.
If he plays vs bate I’d like to see what he can do.
It’s simply painful watching Mustafi attempt to play football. Other players can boost about their abilities with the ball, all mustafi has are disabilities.
Arsenal need to watch Man City and learn. They have players who can beat their man creating space. They move the ball quicker and accurately with a range of short and long passes. They make runs supporting the player on the ball. They cover efficiently with just Fernandihno at the base. They take shots efficiently from outside the box alert to loose balls. We have potential in the squad but we need to have better balance particularly in this match, we lack midfield control. Unai has some of the pieces for a good team. Mustafi is not the problem. We… Read more »
A very good summation that I agree with. Obviously, we have to get down to basics and ask ourselves if a certain player is going to help us win the League. If the answer no that is the time when Emery will start to run the blue pencil through their names. I know that it a brutal decision to make but we are in a results business. Furthermore, if Emery was not told that he would be getting next to nothing in the offseason to purchase new players that is one thing but if he learned that after he signed… Read more »
In today’s world of key board warriors with no patience, can we just support our young ( they are young) homegrown players. In some 40 yrs supporting Arsenal & arrendung matches regularly, some of the most satisfying moments have been watching & sporting the homegrown players (e.g. O’leary, Brady, Adams, Rocastle etc). In my view the best teams ( including Barcelona) have a core of homegrown players supplemented by world class imports. So please please SUPPORT Naitland- Miles, Alex Iwobi, Reiss Nelson, Emile Smith Rowe, Saku, Eddie Neiketah etc. Whatever you think of them in my expdrience it is always… Read more »
Yours is the most sensible comment of the entire blog. Here, there are always fans slating a 22-year old Iwobi who always gives his best, drives the team forward instead of shirking responsibility and passing sideways. In the same vein they would absolve older (import) players who play badly. These same fickle fans claim to know the team better than the manager.
To those who, on this forum just a few weeks ago, chose to write out Captain off after just a handful of minutes back from injury suffered serving this club…
with comments, some of whose cruelty was surpassed only by their complete lack of insight or humanity…
Oh ye of little faith – the KOS is back, you FUCKING whinging disloyal muppets!