Here are my Arsenal player ratings from this evenings awful 1-1 draw with Southampton:
Wojciech Szczesny – So poor was the team’s performance that the Poland international was perhaps Arsenal’s Man of the Match. Wasn’t called up on a lot but when he was he did his job. Couldn’t do anything about the goal he conceded. 5.5/10
Bacary Sagna – The worst player on the pitch by 10 country miles. Misplaced nearly every pass he made and always looked back instead of forward. If any of you are looking for a new drinking game to play, play the ‘Sagna can’t cross game’ – trust me you’ll be hammered before the 90 minutes are up. Awful. 1/10
Laurent Koscielny – Southampton’s goal, initially, came through the Frenchman’s poor clearance. Looked like he and Vermaelen met for the first time tonight. Needs to do better if he wants to claim a regular spot in the side. 4/10
Thomas Vermaelen – Did ok, but wasn’t great. Kept position well but struggled to handle Rickie Lambert at times. 5/10
Kieran Gibbs – Never saw much of him in the final third until the last 15, which was disappointing. Did ok defensively. 4/10
Mikel Arteta – Kept things nice and tidy in the middle of the park and was composed throughout. Not a holding midfielder though. 4/10
Jack Wilshere – Had the desire and passion but his technical ability let him down tonight. Never seen him misplace so many passes as he did tonight. For his standards, it was a poor display. 4/10
Santi Cazorla – Made some intelligent runs forward and found pockets to operate but failed to influence the game. Lacked creativity. Was taken off for Ramsey with 16 minutes left to play. 4/10
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – Not the same Chamberlain we saw against Newcastle a number of days ago. Fought for the ball and delivered a few decent balls into the box, but not enough. 4/10
Lukas Podolski – Had a quiet game. Faded from the game quickly and lacked the service we know he can deliver. As such, he was only given 13 minutes in the second-half. Ghost display from the German. 3/10
Theo Walcott – Had the only effort on target, and it wasn’t a great one. Wasn’t provided any service but didn’t do enough individually either. All strikers have one of these performances and unfortunately this was his. 4/10
SUBS:
Olivier Giroud – Came on for Podolski in the 58th minute to help Walcott upfront but failed to create or penetrate Southampton’s defence. Held the ball up well when on the attack but faded as the game progressed. 3/10
Aaron Ramsey – Replaced Cazorla in the 74th minute and wasn’t able to settle into the game due to the little time he had. Made a few decent passes and kept position well but did nothing noticeable. 3/10
Gervinho – Came on for Chamberlain in the 74th minute. Ran down the winger a number of times but had no coordination or skill to get past his man. Had one effort on goal which went wide of the post. 2.5/10
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I agree with all of this except the criticism of Walcott the poor performance of the rest of the team was not his fault nor was it Giroud’s I doubt even RVP would have gotten a goal in that game.
Or that Arteta played well he made no attacking passes no effort to quickly turn defense into attack It is not enough to cut off a bad pass (the only time he actually won the ball except when he fouled his man.) and then play it back. You MUST make tackles even when the other team makes a great pass. AND then you have to be able to Quickly play accurate forward passes.
The passing and crosses where HORRIBLE and defensive efforts from all where poor Midfield and defenders could not win a tackle to save their lives backing off or simply running along side southhampton’s players as if they where trying to mark messi (had they actually been messi Arsenal would have conceded 5 goals today ) For GD sake this is a team that is fighting to avoid relegation and Arsenal defended as if it was the league leaders or a CL final vs barca. Only bright side is maybe the board will see they ARE NOT OK as after the Newcastle match I was worried they would take that game as a assessment of the squad and not spend during the transfer window. We MUST sign a real def. Mid one that is big and strong as well as talented going forward. It is Not enough to just win tackles only to be so poor passing you can’t counter attack
Ceded control of the midfield due to the lack of a specialized holding player.This left us with too much to do. Wilshere, Cazorla,Arteta were badly off song.Just forget about it and prepare for Swansea away and city and Chelsea in the league.Ps Southampton will probably cause a few of our rivals problems between now and the end of the season.Anyway we can make up ground against our rivals by beating them over the next few months
Thought a score of 3 for ‘Arrow’ Ramsey was a bit mean. He came on and moved- actually ran and tried to link play like a proper midfielder should. If we had 6 players doing that on the pitch- perhaps we would not be outplayed by Norwich, Swansea, Bradford and the Saints. Unfortunately, moving after passing and closing down of the opposition is only for the lesser teams— and Barca, City, Manure, Chelsea and Bayern– but that is just coincidence!! Time to give the Coq, Tomas and Rambo a run together. They can’t be worse!
Where the hell was Thomas Rosicky?? He is clearly the best player Arsenal have got, yet he is nowhere near the team. with him in midfield, Arsenal will fare better. He knows how to fight and can drive the team forward.
The problem is that we played 2 matches in 3 days with the same starting line up. In-fact, the last 3-4 matches, we’ve had pretty much the same line up from the start. Wenger doesn’t rotate players because he doesn’t believe in the rest of the squad. When you don’t have faith in the whole squad, your time is up. Last night we could’ve easily started off with the likes of Rosicky, Coquelin, Ramsey and Gervinho. It surely wouldn’t have been as bad as watching a flat Podolski, Cazorla and Ox to name a few. One more thing, we played from the start of the season with Jenkinson and did not miss Sagna at all. Why? Because Sagna is average to begin with. All of the sudden he comes back from injury and he’s an automatic choice, regardless of how poor he plays. But the positive is, we didn’t lose and we move on to Man City.
Rosicky has only played well for us for the last 3 months of last season( when his contract was up for renewal),so he’s hardly a game changing substitute.Ramsey needs to go on loan to get some game time and thus regain some touch anconfidence.Thirteen points from fifteen is ok so no need for panic stations.Last night was exactly like Norwich away with the only difference being the result.Anyway I havr a funny feeling that we’ll do better in the big fixtures to come.From looking at these forums its apparent that people can see what the team needs so surely Arsene will act.On an aside,I’m glad that the club are not resigning Henrythat would be a retrograde step.