Arsenal just edged through their Premier League clash against Watford with a 1-0 victory, despite playing most of the game with a man advantage.
Overview
Troy Deeney was sent off early on for an elbow in Lucas Torreira’s face, not long after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had given Arsenal the lead by punishing a Ben Foster mistake. However, rather than sparking a spree of goalscoring, that ended up being the only time either side found the net.
Unai Emery won’t care much, as his side got the three away points they desperately needed, moving back up into the top four with a game in hand on Chelsea and a two-point lead on Manchester United.
Let’s have a look at our player ratings for the clash.
Goalkeeper and Defence
Bernd Leno 8
Leno saved well from Craig Cathcart early on, and then even more impressively from an Etienne Capoue free-kick not long afterwards. Those ended up being the only saves the German had to make, though he did claim one cross well towards the end of the game.
The 27-year-old’s distribution was also good, finding his target 76% of the time, and he earned his clean sheet.
Shkodran Mustafi 7.5
Bar one or two trademark lapses, Mustafi put in a very solid performance playing at right-back and then centre-back. He won six aerial duels, twice anybody else on the pitch, and added two tackles, five clearances and four interceptions in a busy performance.
Laurent Koscielny 7.5
Koscielny wasn’t as effective in the air, but he worked just as hard for the clean sheet and had to win a number of physical duels as you’d expect against Watford. He was also excellent on the ball, with 96% pass accuracy.
Konstantinos Mavropanos 6
Mavropanos made a bit of a rash attempt to barge Andre Gray off the ball which allowed the striker to get into a great position in the opening half an hour. He looked a bit rusty defensively, though he was as good as Koscielny in possession, finding his target with 46 of his 48 passes.
Unai Emery clearly didn’t feel completely comfortable with the Greek international though, as he came off for Matteo Guendouzi after 59 minutes.
Nacho Monreal 7
Monreal read the play well to prevent a tap in after Gray got in behind the defence in the first half. He had a good battle with Daryl Janmaat, which he won about half of the time, with each full-back only creating a solitary chance throughout the 90 minutes.