Arsenal won their first home match of the Premier League season against Burnley on Saturday, to make it two wins from two games in 2019/20.

Arsenal gave a few players their competitive home debuts against Burnley, with Dani Ceballos and David Luiz starting whilst Nicolas Pepe played a half from the bench.

Lucas Torreira, Alexandre Lacazette and Sead Kolasinac also played their first competitive minutes of the campaign, so there was an element of settling-in to the match. Nonetheless, Arsenal came away with the three points in a hard-fought 2-1 victory.

Let’s have a look at our player ratings for the match.

Goalkeeper

• Bernd Leno 7 – Leno made a few good saves, even if he didn’t manage a clean sheet. Arsenal are still adapting to the best way to utilise the new rules around goal kicks, so it would be harsh to blame any individual for how shaky they looked on them.

Defence

• Nacho Monreal 7.5 – Monreal had a good game at both ends, creating a number of promising chances whilst also winning plenty of defensive duels and making five clearances.
• David Luiz 7.5 – Luiz’s passing range was immediately on show on his debut, consistently putting the Burnley backline under threat with one long ball. Pepe and Aubameyang are going to love him.
• Sokratis Papastathopoulos 7 – Sokratis was solid defensively, and seemed to quickly realise he was best off just allowing Luiz to play the forward passes.
• Ainsley Maitland-Niles 7 – Maitland-Niles wasn’t quite as impressive against Newcastle, but he still had some nice moments, particularly making interceptions.

Midfield

• Matteo Guendouzi 8 – This was the classic Guendouzi performance, spraying passes around with ease, making lots of interceptions and even adding a clearance off the line. He continues to be poor in the air though. One out of seven aerial duels won this time.
• Joe Willock 8 – Willock continued his positive start to 2019/20 with another impressive match. He created a couple of chances, completed all of his attempted dribbles, won the majority of his duels and completed more long passes than any other outfield player.
• Dani Ceballos 9 – By far the best performer in an already very strong midfield showing, Ceballos was fantastic. His two assists were just the cherry on top as he beat players for fun, won free-kicks all afternoon, took dangerous shots, passed intelligently and accurately. Good stuff all around.

Forwards

• Reiss Nelson 6.5 – Nelson was unlucky not to grab a goal, particularly as Monreal was the one who was at fault for the offside. Unfortunately, he was sacrificed for Pepe’s home debut after a hit and miss half.
• Alexandre Lacazette 7 – Lacazette and Aubameyang got the goals, but they can both do better than their overall showings on this occasion. Lacazette was just coming back from injury and didn’t waste any time getting on the scoresheet, but he could’ve been more involved.
• Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 7 – Aubameyang never looks quite as impressive out wide, but he took his goal excellently.

Substitutes

• Nicolas Pepe 7.5 – Pepe caught the eye a few times in his first outing in front of the Arsenal home fans. He created two great chances and embarrassed Ben Mee with a cheeky nutmeg.
• Sead Kolasinac 6 – Kolasinac was fine, though he’s unlikely to win back the left-back spot from Monreal as things stand. Good to see him back though.
• Lucas Torreira 6 – Torreira came on very late and was mostly useful for running down the clock after being fouled.