Arsenal topped their Europa League group as a Kieran Tierney goal in the first half gave us a 1-0 win.
It wasn’t much fun, and in the final stages it was quite nervy as one goal would have been enough for PSV to finish top.
Still, it’s job done, and we turn our attention to Chelsea on Sunday.
Here’s how the players rated this evening.
Read the Arsenal 1-0 FC Zurich report and see the goals here
Arsenal 1-0 FC Zurich – 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 Aaron Ramsdale. Also, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Holding seemed assured to me. I enjoy his calmness.
Part of the reason our Europa performances suffer is that both second tier and first tier players play too much for themselves.
Wow. Watched two different games then. Holding was attrocious.
He wasn’t.
He was worrying at times. Allowing his man to make the run in front of him. They could have bagged a couple of goals if they got on the end to the crosses
Looked like a player who hasn’t had a lot of game time.
He was first choice on the left hand side of central defence before his knee injury
Commeters’ logic. We won, so he was fine. If we’d have drawn, all his terrible play for the evening would somehow then be relevant.
If he’d scored 3 own goals, conceded a stonewall pen and got sent off but we won 5 v 4….its: Holding for England!
Atrocious would have represented the ceiling. He sucked hugely throughout. It’s all that hair growth is draining his energy…
Reverse Samson?
We need him to date a hairdresser called Deliliah
I thought it was odd he wasn’t captain
Think he looks less assured the less he plays. It‘s not easy as a center back when you‘re playing every 2 weeks and with constantly changing partners in defence and at DM. Think if you consider that, he did quite well in the group stages.
Fair comment but he got turned too easily, is too slow to react and snuff out danger plus he let’s attackers run in front of him from crosses
Not atrocious but mediocre. Most of his passes were backwards; when he attempted side passes they were slow and predictable putting us at risk of losing the ball, because of that most of the time we could not progress forward. did not pass often enough the ball to Mo or TP5 the central.
Just to say, me saying he was horrific yesterday isn’t me saying “let’s get rid of him – he’s awful”. He’s not great, but as a 4th choice centre back and for the “Holding out for a win” approach he’s fine.
Plus, he’s homegrown – I think using a non homegrown player for a backup is a waste, so unless there is another cheap, homegrown player that could come in to the squad in his place, I’m fine with Holding filling that role.
Absolutely agree with your first paragraph, but I don’t get the logic of your second paragraph.
we can get as many homegrown players as we like, currently we have we have named 21 senior players, 7 are homegrown, 14 not, because Saka, Saliba and Martinelli are still in the under-21 list.
we can get 3 (and possibly 4 given that we have named George Lewis as senior) more non-homegrown players and keep Holding in our list.
We need a striker desperately.
We have Jesus & Nketiah. We need a different option, a Giroud type if you must.
We need a striker, a winger and a central midfielder.
The great news is that we only need backups. I can’t remember the last transfer window where we didn’t have a glaring weakness in our starting 11.
Give the boys we have some time to prove what they can do. This project is still in its nascent stage. I’m all for signings, but I’d also like to see space for Balogun, Patino, Vieira, Marquinos and Lokonga to grow.
Harry Maguire ? Looked bang on playing up top next to Ronaldo tonight
2025 “Harry, who do you dedicate this Ballon d’Or to?” “To Mikel for seeing the potential in my forehead and turning me into the phenomenal 50-goal-a-season machine I am today”
A different option, yeah I get that but putting the ball in the net would be nice whether he’s tall or not.
I look forward to this referee appearing soon in the PL. He was well down to the level required.
The worst I’ve seen this season and we’ve seen some real clowns in the EPL.
My favourite was when Ben White and one of theirs got a stern talking to before a corner. It was obvious neither player had clue what the ref was going on about.
he was quite a chatty bloke.
8/10 Aliti’s screams. Good efforts, but still not of Giroud’s calibre.
Yep, you could have hired Olivier for a horror film
Gabriel was definitely a 7.5 on the night. He just loves defending
Nketiah is not good enough on or off the ball. Reiss performance is very encouraging. Top of the group, job done.
Neither pass muster for me I’m afraid
Much nervier than it should have been. But in recent years, don’t think we would have held on. We’re building something special: the winning habit!
We held on and worked hard, most won’t praise it, but it shows how much we’ve grown and that speaks a lot – Well done boys! Good to see Nelson with more spring in his step and elneny moving balls. Hope you’re okay Tomi 🤞🏻
I agree. We should never underestimate how tempting it is for players to take their foot off the gas in games like these. The teams that don’t are the truly special ones.
Why is it tempting to have to play TWO more games in a play off by finishing 2nd in the group? The only saving grace here is that the games would be player after the World Cup in Feb 2023
On the whole, lacklustre and maybe costly (Tomiyasu). Seemed to forget how to play football in the last 15 minutes.
Vieira needs to put on some muscle, way too easy for any opponent to shut him out. And Sambi needs a loan spell. Edu and Arteta need to do some holiday shopping for the rest of the season; very demanding schedule immediately after the World Cup and early February.
You could almost see Ramsdale loudly thinking “c**ts as the knuckle draggers kicked & screamed through the game ! And of course he was right ! I hope Benjamin stares at their team bus very very intensely tonight !
Good result but the ” Respect” campaign no longer applies to so many inadequate refs ! Respect is a 2 way thing & that referee was an absolute disgrace !
Jesus needs a reset. He’s trying too hard and it’s a painful sight to see. Not sure he’ll get a break tho – not while Nketiah continues to underwhelm. Hopefully it clicks for Jesus on Sunday.
I agree his dropping too deep to get on the ball is a symptom of his frustration at not scoring but his all round game is still sublime (bar the finishing)
I thought Nelson was very tidy, worth a high score?
Higher
He looked frightening running at defenders but gave it away sloppily a few times. If he can keep his confidence up and iron out a few mistakes, there’s so much potential there.
He’s 22 and been at Arsenal since he was 9 years old. The shelf-life for his ‘potential’ must be perilously close to its sell by date. He’s a talented player certainly but never delivered consistently when given the chance as his 6 goals and 5 assists in 53 appearances suggests.
22 is still quite young. The fact he’s been at Arsenal since he’s 9 doesn’t seem like a stick to beat him with. He’s largely had significant success and praise from the youth levels. The question is how he handles being a professional and staying healthy. He’s had a few unfortunately timed injuries and seems to be learning to accept his mistakes and learn from them. Good news for his future, but may be a bit too late for his Arsenal career as Arsenal have less than a year to make a decision.
Tierney seemed focused, energetic, and determined to not get anything except a win.
I like Tierney but he needs to work on his body. It’s not right to make millions of middle aged men feel bad about themselves on a Thursday evening. I would suggest some toblerone and some overpriced czech lager as a start.
What makes you say Czech lager is ovepriced? Genuine question.
Haha not all Czech lager my man, I mean go down to a fancy off licence and experiment with some boujee expensive stuff.
No offense taken! I’m Czech: was wondering if there’s a wider perception that Czech beer is overpriced.
I’m not a huge beer person anyway, so it’s not like I’d argue with you or anything, just curious.
he doesn’t drink (alcohol)
Did the referee take officiating lessons from Robert Jones?
No even worse, Phil Dowd!!
I swear the worst refs are these ones like tonight who seem to referee based on the score rather than the game. “oh, Arsenal is winning then by all means rip his shirt off”. Most of the bad calls were not as blatant. Although the fact that CBs can grab and hold our forwards is mind boggling. Drives me nuts. Dear referee it is not your job to help the other team stay in the game. AAArgh.
I hope I’m proven wrong in time, but Vieira looks to me nowhere near the level required.
Agreed, he’s been pretty underwhelming, although the quality in his shots and crosses is evident. Hopefully he can adapt to the rhythm required.
Yeah, not sure how he rated as highly as Elneny on the night. Thought Elneny was quite good and Vieira was atrocious. More banged shots into defenders than had shots blocked.
A battling win with our 2nd team – and yet still some dreary bastards are moaning about a 22 year old in his first season (in a new league and a new country).
Let him grow. He was no worse than a handful of other players on pitch.
Against the worst side in Switzerland having substituted ON our first eleven in the 2nd half we were forced to grimly hang on. Vieira does need time to adapt but he does look lightweight to me. Get that lad in the conditioning gym pronto (or make him eat porridge)
Don’t agree, he’s a victim of the huge turnaround in players, he looked excellent against Brentford when he had quality alongside him.
The player i worry about is Lokonga, really struggle to identify whats he’s actually good at.
Glad to have Elneny back so we aren’t forced to rely on Lokonga as backup for Partey, but this game really showed how much we need Partey, Xhaka and Odegaard together in midfield. Vieira just doesn’t keep our attack ticking like Odegaard does.
Partey is a key player for us and does some lovely stuff. But then gives the ball away a minute later. Wish he could get that out of his system.
Thought Nelson was decent, encouraging signs.
Respect to Tierney – we need fighters like him.
Worrying trend in the game was how often Ramsdale played the long ball with zero effect. Yes our strikers were held and kicked all night but we don’t have a target man like Giroud any more to win those duels. Time after time the long ball ended up with us conceding possession yet we did it all night, quite surprising considering how well we’ve been playing out from the back this season.
I rate Ramsdale very highly but his distribution has become very sloppy of late e.g. he even kicked a clearance out to concede a corner (which takes a bit of doing)
Arsenal midfield was very slow to take the ball forward. This forced the strikers to fall back to look for the ball. The traditional Arsenal pace which is the basis for their possession and creation of goal scoring opportunities was lacking. I feel Lokongo didn’t deserve to feature in that game bcoz he doesn’t drive the ball forward, ie he isn’t aggressive to match the pace of the other players. By coincidence he’s started in the 2 Arsenal losses so far this season. The Arsenal Manager should focus on getting results and not experimenting. The Technical Directors should bring in… Read more »
We’re not even favourites for top 4.
According to Gary Neville maybe
We were hanging on towards the end against a side who are 6 points adrift at the bottom of their own ‘wee diddy’ league. Glad we avoided another two play off fixtures but the only Gooner who passed muster tonight was Tierney (offense and defence) FC Zurich’s Kamberi must be the unwanted love child of Bruno Fernandes and Katie Hopkins as he has a face and attitude like a KT cross i.e. begging to be attacked. Arteta clearly cannot rely on his bench to navigate what should be relatively comfortable wins against bang average teams like FC Zurich and PSV… Read more »