Arsenal kept their impressive win going with a 4-1 win in what we discovered on Friday would be Arsene Wenger’s final London derby, against West Ham.
Arsenal struggled to break down the Hammers at first, and it took until the 51st minute for Nacho Monreal to open the scoring. Just as the fans were starting to enjoy themselves, Marko Arnautovic scored an equaliser.
The usual frustration started to build, until the team eventually opened the floodgates and scored three goals in the final 10 minutes to win the match.
So how did the players do individually?
1Defence
David Ospina 7
Ospina generally did pretty well, and didn’t have much hope stopping West Ham’s goal. The only thing you could hold against him was his punch in the build up, which was much too central. Other than that this was a good bit of preparation for Thursday’s crucial Europa League tie. His distribution was particularly impressive, with 91% accuracy.
Hector Bellerin 5
I saw people arguing on social media that it was too much of a risk to play the likes of Bellerin in this match with such a key game on Thursday, but his performance showed exactly why it was so necessary. Bellerin hadn’t played a match since Arsenal’s trip to Moscow, and he didn’t look at all sharp. Let’s just hope he’s ready for Atletico now.
Shkodran Mustafi 4
In the most predictable moment of Sunday’s match, Mustafi failed to notice Arnautovic getting into space for his goal. His form is becoming a concern ahead of the Europa League semi-final. He also slipped over for the second time in two games to allow an attacker in. Change of studs needed maybe?
He did get back and make an excellent last-ditch tackle to deny Arnautovic early on. Even then though, he shouldn’t be ending up in a situation where he’s having to make a very difficult tackle from behind in the penalty area.
Laurent Koscielny 7
Koscielny was generally a lot more assured than his defensive partner, as he so often is. The centre-back won all of his attempted tackles, made clearances and interceptions and completed 94% of his passes.
He put Arnautovic under pressure all match, but struggled a bit in the air against the striker and Andy Carroll. In fairness, that definitely wasn’t an easy task.
Nacho Monreal 8
It was Monreal to the rescue once again at the weekend. Scoring his fourth goal since Alexis Sanchez last played for Arsenal, the Spaniard is really stepping up to make sure the goals don’t dry up without last season’s leading scorer. It was a well taken finish, and just added to the 32-year-old’s good work all game.