Arsenal secured a fifth consecutive win and a first clean sheet of the season against Everton on Sunday, and moved up to sixth in the table.
Playing the second of four straight matches at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal were keen to keep making a good impression on their supporters. The team had to wait until the 56th minute to take the lead, after a relatively slow first-half performance, but eventually they secured the win fairly comfortably. By Arsenal standards, at least.
Let’s have a look at how each player did individually in the victory.
1Goalkeeper and Defence
Petr Cech 9
Cech was probably Arsenal’s man-of-the-match, and had to be alert for the full 90 minutes to keep a clean sheet.
In the opening minutes he had to smother a Calvert-Lewin chance that looked a certain goal. Later in the match he made some more crucial saves, including one from a Keane header that he did well to keep out and push away from danger.
Despite counter-productive sarcastic cheers from the crowd whenever Cech played it long, his work on the ball was also good enough on the day.
Hector Bellerin 8
Coming back in for Stephan Lichtsteiner, Bellerin was excellent on and off the ball. A lot of Arsenal fans were worried about Richarlison, but Bellerin made sure those fears were unfounded, marshalling the Everton wide man effectively all day. In possession, he misplaced just one pass in the entire 90 minutes.
Shkodran Mustafi 6.5
Mustafi wasn’t terrible on Sunday, but he still looks shaky in the Arsenal defence. Whether he’s next to Rob Holding or Sokratis Papastathopoulos, he always looks the more likely of the two to be caught out of position, or to play a pass that puts a teammate under massive pressure.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos 6
Sokratis started the game well enough, and made a good tactical foul to prevent a dangerous Everton attack at one point. Then he got injured, and had to come off in the first-half. Not ideal, with Arsenal’s already limited centre-back options.
Nacho Monreal 6
I’m afraid I wasn’t impressed with Monreal defensively on Sunday. He lost a lot of duels, and led the defence for the number of fouls he committed, as well as the number of times he was dispossessed. Going forward was bit better, but he couldn’t find his target with a single cross, so it was still far from perfect.
Perhaps the Spaniard is suffering a bit from having to play every game at the moment. Hopefully he improves this week.