It was a really frustrating Wednesday night in London and you certainly couldn’t tell it was a match between last season’s champions and the runner-ups.
Arsenal had the most of the possession, like in a few matches in recent weeks, but just couldn’t score the goal, or even create some clear chances. The game improved in the second half and we got a scrappy, but deserved goal.
Petr Čech – 6.5
Even though Leicester weren’t very attacking, they had some pretty decent efforts, and Čech managed to save them all. We didn’t concede and we can thank him – especially in first half. He had that one blunder of a pass that luckily didn’t end up as a good chance for Leicester.
Gabriel – 7
Another great performance from our Brazilian at the back – he really likes being a part of three- man defence! He looked composed, good on the ball, and even had more courage going forward than usual, although he didn’t do much when he got there.
Koscielny – 6.5
Koscielny didn’t have much to do and he stayed at the back most of the game. Handled anything coming his way decently, although some of his reactions could have been sharper. Let’s hope the injury he picked up late in the game is nothing too serious, I’d hate to see Gabriel-Holding pair up at Tottenham, no matter how good they look either side of Koscielny!
Nacho Monreal – 8
Nacho is our best striker at the moment! Jokes aside, another good match from our Spaniard on the left, and another goal. Although it was given to Leicester’s defender, Robert Huth, Nacho did most of the work. He didn’t have much to do in defence so he was going forward a lot and did okay.
Hector Bellerin – 6.5
Hector played better than in a few of his recent appearances but is still not the player we are used to. He was constantly going forward in his new position as wingback, trying crosses and cutting into the middle equally. Nothing made much impact, but he tried.
Franics Coquelin – 6
A massive eyeroll all across the Gooner world ensued when Coquelin was announced in the starting lineup. He didn’t do anything. By that, of course, I mean that he didn’t do anything wrong or right. Passes all over the place, not creating much up front, and clearly doesn’t work well paired with Granit Xkaha.
Granit Xhaka – 7.5
Xhaka really bossed the midfield tonight, especially in first half. Our top passer, he was a good link between defence and attack, although his attempts at long balls and shots from outside the box weren’t as good as they can be. He did manage to get a yellow but he was well disciplined with his tackles.
Kieran Gibbs – 6
Gibbs got a surprising (well, for me) start as wingback on the left side and he did as well as expected. He clearly lacks match time and his passes and chance creation efforts weren’t as good as we’d like them to be. I’m sure he’d do better if he got more minutes, but he won’t get them if he doesn’t use his chances better.
Theo Walcott – 5
At one point I asked myself, did Theo do anything? He was invisible for the entire match, until he was subbed. There was one half chance in first half, he created zero chances and completed only 18 passes. A shocking display and everyone was relieved when he was subbed.
Alexis Sanchez – 6.5
Alexis was once again pretty poor the whole match, with a few flashes of greatness – like hitting the woodwork in the first half. He did pass the ball around more and Leicester players were always surrounding him but most of his efforts weren’t good enough. He’s usually “worth the wait” and manages to score something, but not against Leicester. I can’t forget how he kinda fell asleep for a moment in the first half which gave Leicester a great opportunity.
He had a little disagreement with Huth and Fuchs at the end of the match and got a yellow and swollen lip.
Mesut Özil – 7
A good performance form Mesut, even though it didn’t bring concrete results. His movement was great once again and he managed to create four chances. You could say that his teammates let him down a bit, but he also could have taken a shot a few times rather than passing the ball and trying setup someone else.
Danny Welbeck – 5
Welbeck came on and made an instant impact, enlivened the match a bit but it faded a bit when we switched to 4-3-3.
Olivier Giroud- 3
Not very involved but should have seen a red card for Leicester’s defender after a horrible ‘challenge’ on him.
Aaron Ramsey – 3
Got involved, got whole Emirates to moan when he tried a flip pass.