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
Like what you read? Then follow me on Twitter – http://twitter.com/Gunnersphere
Visit and Join our Facebook page, click HERE to do so.
Gunnersphere is currently looking for new writers to join the squad. Contact via twitter or at Gunnersphere@snack-media.com for further details.
Completely agree with your ratings.Arsenal’s’ play was pathetic
Great … is it even worth watching on MOTD later then or not ? It sounds to me like I will probably want to smash my living room up if I watch that ???
If u are a Gooner and u did something really REALLY bad in 2012 and u feel u need to get some punishment to ease your conscious, then by all means watch the game. If not, FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND HOLY, get some exercise, watch goerdie shores, eat shit, anything but watch that immoral showing of what was suppose to be a game of football
southampton are a good team
but we should be playing better
they dominated the midfield.
it showed that we lack some to make tackles in midfield willshare looked like the defensive midfielder not arteta.
wenger need to buy a world class big strong player to play as the defensive midfield.
and plus we have been a bit lucky in the past few games. 2 penalties agains west brom.
lucky to win agains wigan.
and mostly won agains newcastles due to them falling off a clif in the last 20 mins.
we are a good team just 1-2 world class players is what we need.
The ratings were a little kind.Just a bad day at the office. Could have lost that,so forget it and move on to man city
We are not a good team.We are an average team,capable of huge inconsistency,liable to concede in almost any situation, desperately short of a midfield destroyer and very disappointing out wide. Southampton were comfortably worth a point and would have won if theown goal hadn’t occurred.
The substitutions were patehetic . Bringing Gervinho on is an insult to the supporters of our great club. Sagna is growing to resemble him in terms of appearance and playing ability one. Shaw looked a superb prospect but we need much more character in this side.
I am so glad. All you IDIOTS that believed Walcott was the answer and suddenly worth £100k per week – serves you right. I admit Theo. scored a well taken hat-trick, however is is still a poor player. The pass he played to Cazorla when he broke away says everything about Walcott and lets not forget the 2nd & 3rd goal he scored were from wide positions. Theo’ cannot play down the middle As he has poor control,no brain and poor movement.
The mark for wenger should be 1.5 for almost total ineptitude? The final two subs were awful. We had cocquelin and rosicky on the bench: one a tackler to help us win back control and other a bright spark!
stupid arsenal made me lost 250 euro today. silly coach with bounch of silly inexpirience players. Wenger deserve to be sacked period. a team who cannot beat a relegation zone southeton
Congratulations on winning the 2013 edition of “It only took a few hours into the 1st day of the year to make a loser of myself, again”
Don’t be fooled by the 7-3 win against a physically drained Newcastle, or the 5-2 mauling of 10 man spurs, or even the relatively fortunate win at Wigan. Because in my opinion, while we are a decent enough side, that’s all we are at the moment. I have seen far too many games this season when we have lacked desire, bite and passion, seemingly okay just to go through the motions (think Norwich, villa, Chelsea, QPR, Swansea to name a few) and this is a real problem that needs to be sorted with the signing of another midfielder (a Tiote type of player) who will help wilshere and go and win the ball, driving the team on, and a character who will not tolerate the kind of not give a shit type of performance we gave tonight (again). From 10 mins in we never looked like doing anything and it did not change even after half time, that is mystifying. On topic; agree with ratings, sagna was utterly woeful (pretty poor sat too) and gervinhio sums up the state of our current squad; a player who in times gone past would be considered no where near good enough to wear our famous shirt. Oh, a centre forward who can score when he and the team are playing poorly is also a must I believe.