Arsenal kept their good run going and beat Southampton 2-0 on Wednesday night to get back to 5th place, just 3 away from the beloved top 4.

Although things didn’t look too good for quite a while, the Arsenal players did step up in the end and scored 2 great goals. The only bad thing about the game was an injury for the Ox, but we will have to see how bad it really is.

Petr Čech – 8

During a few bad segments of our performance at Southampton, I was calling Čech our MOTM – and I wasn’t exaggerating. He was the only reason we weren’t 1-0 (or more!) down at half time with some decent saves, including one 1-on-1. He continued his good performance the during second half. He has definitely upped his game lately – keep it up!

Rob Holding – 7

Very cool and calm performance from our young defender Rob once again. He made lots of clearances and ball recoveries and even joined in attack a few times – not only during set pieces! Getting braver.

Shkodran Mustafi – 8

Absolutely bossed the defence, our Shkodran. Some of his tackles were peak Koscielny – even the one that Moss called a foul which it wasn’t. Good passing, won all his attempted tackles and clearances, and even got a shot on goal. A really great match, and you couldn’t even tell Koscielny was missing. He has really benefited from the rest his injury afforded him.

Nacho Monreal – 7

A decent performance from Nacho on the left of our three-man defence. He also was100% successful in tackles and clearances, but I kinda like it better when he plays more up front and think he provides more in attack than Gibbs.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – 6

The rating for the Ox would definitely be higher if he wasn’t subbed early on due to what looked to be a hamstring injury – such a shame because he was having another great match, driving Southampton’s defence nuts and creating chances for our attack. Hope it’s not too bad!

Aaron Ramsey – 7.5

Ramsey wasn’t looking too into the match at some points, with poor ball handling and some misunderstandings with his teammates but his headed assist for Giroud was brilliant and helped him redeem himself a bit!

Granit Xhaka – 8

Granit Xhaka ended a match refereed by Jon Moss on the pitch without even getting a yellow card! And he wasn’t just a passenger either. He was again making things happen in midfield with a lot of passes including a pre-assist (oh love that word) for our first goal, straight through Southampton’s defence. He almost scored but this time the ball was deflected away from the goal.

Kieran Gibbs – 6.5

As I mentioned above, I’d much rather see Monreal in Gibbs’ role at the moment. It’s not that I don’t like him, or think he’s bad, he’s just much better defensively than up front – which was clear at Southampton as well. He did lots of good stuff in defence but looked kinda lost in attack and made some poor decisions. Hopefully he’ll learn!

Alexis Sanchez – 7.5

10 minutes into the second half, I was prepared to give up on Alexis and his performance. He wasn’t looking sharp, he kept the ball too long and he even made a foul throw! Who does that?! And then he scored an amazing goal. 20ish minutes later, he assisted another one. I could say he should do better but that sounds so wrong at the moment.

Mesut Özil – 8

They will again tell you Mesut didn’t do much but I’m telling you don’t listen – he did. I mean, he assisted Alexis for our first goal and created five more chances. “Stats say nothing,” they say, but what more should he do? He even got a yellow card for tracking back, defending and trying to tackle! Good match, keep it going, Mesut!

Danny Welbeck – 6.5

It’s great that Danny is getting match time to build up his fitness and you can see he’s been working hard – he’s so fast! But, I wasn’t impressed with his performance against Southampton and thought he should have done better on several occasions, both to score himself and to assist to one of his teammates.


Hector Bellerin – 7

Bellerin came on for the injured Ox and, although he’s not as on form as Ox is, he did well. His crosses looked much better and he was solid defensively too.

Olivier Giroud – 8

“Bad sub” was basically what everyone on Twitter was saying but hey, Giroud ended up scoring one of his trademark bullet headers and secured our win. Super sub or what?

Francis Coquelin – 0