Arsenal put in another good performance in their weekend victory over Watford, winning consecutive games for only the second time this calendar year.
Arsene Wenger needed another committed team performance to help keep confidence high ahead of Milan’s visit on Thursday, even if the league matches are essentially meaningless at this stage. That’s just what the players gave him, as Arsenal ran out 3-0 winners.
Here are our individual player ratings:
1Defence
Petr Čech 8
Čech delivered a shot-stopping performance deserving of the 200th Premier League clean sheet milestone he reached on Sunday. He made a number of saves, including one from Troy Deeney’s penalty, ensuring a comfortable final half hour.
It wasn’t all good though. Čech’s distribution was dodgy again, and at one point he threw the ball into the ground next to him by accident. Also, his save from Richarlison’s free-kick fell right at the feet of Roberto Pereyra, and the goalkeeper was lucky to see the Watford man completely fluff his lines.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles 7.5
Maitland-Niles was back at right-back for the first time in over a year with the senior side. He looked a lot more confident in the position, and earned praise from pundits for his ability to get up and down the pitch without being caught out defensively.
Unfortunately, he did give away a penalty, but there wasn’t much he could do to avoid contact. Other than that it was a very solid performance.
Shkodran Mustafi 8
Mustafi scored Arsenal’s opening goal and made the match a lot more comfortable than it otherwise might have been.
At the other end, he and Holding had the task of winning aerial duels against Deeney all day, and they did it very well. The English striker won less than half of his duels in the 90 minutes.
The German’s passing was the weakest of the back line, but still much better than in recent matches.
Rob Holding 7
As mentioned, Holding dealt with Deeney very well.
He had the third highest pass accuracy on the team, but he did make two very slack passes towards the end that almost let Watford in for a goal.
That would’ve been a shame after a generally positive performance.
Sead Kolašinac 7
As always, Kolašinac got into some great attacking positions throughout the match, but he couldn’t quite find the final ball.
If his low cross to Aubameyang had a little less pace on it, it was a certain goal.
Overall it was another decent if unspectacular showing from the Bosnian, who is having a bit of a revival after his mid-season lull.
Next, midfielders…