Well, this has been a fun week for Arsenal fans everywhere!

After being first on Saturday last week, we’re nine points off first on Sunday evening this week. “Same old same old” suggests my Twitter timeline. I, shocker, I know, have been one of those crazy optimistic ones that point to calendar and say “it’s only effing December and we had a bad week” but obviously, it doesn’t matter!

I’m by no means justifying these two performances, as you will see next.

Peter Cech – 5

Eight matches in a row without a clean sheet in the league for big Petr, and you can’t blame it all on the defense. Beaten at his near post for the 2nd goal and his long balls have to be better. Can’t really give anyone much higher rating today.

Hector Bellerin – 6

Hector definitely tried and was involved in our only goal, but sloppy otherwise, especially defensively. It must be the hair. Or, you know, still not 100% ready after the injury.

Gabriel – 5

Good first half, because City were not good, but lost in the second half way too often. After fairly good performances last week, two not so good this week and we have our “old” Gabriel back. Mustafi, we miss you!

Laurent Koscielny – 6.5

A bright spot in Arsenal’s defense, as always, although he played Sane onside (did he though?) for his goal but was pretty decent otherwise. Won a lot of duels and made plenty of interceptions and I’m scared to think of the state of Arsenal if he gets injured *washes mouth*.

Nacho Monreal – 5

Anita calling Wenger: we need Gibbs to play instead of Nacho. It’s been obvious since the season started that Nacho is not his old self and that others noticed it. City played basically the whole 2nd half through his side, as many others did before too. Iwobi wasn’t much help either.

Francis Coquelin – 4.5

I think that today I was a part of that side of the Arsenal fandom that doesn’t like Coquelin. I mean, he didn’t do anything particularity bad but he was just… Coquelin, again. Holding the ball too long, not providing much up front, not helping. Clearly not nearly as good as we need him to be.

Granit Xhaka – 4

As an avid Xhaka fan, I’m sad to give this low rating but I can’t go any higher. He was really bad today, even in the first half when City were still finding themselves. Stats show he didn’t win a single tackle, which is absolutely horrible for a player like him.

Theo Walcott – 6.5

Theo gets (one of) the highest rating because, well, he scored our only goal. And it was indeed a lovely goal and it all looked so good. He looked really good in the first half, at least trying to create *something* but faded away in second along with the rest of his teammates.

Mesut Özil – 3

My heart breaks, as I never thought I’d give Mesut a rating this low, but oh boy, he was the worst player on the pitch today. Actually, was he even on the pitch? Completely invisible, not involved in anything, not trying to create anything, completely let down his teammates, managers and us fans. I think this was his worst performance for Arsenal, from what I can remember, and definitely not helping all those claims that he gets lost against big teams. We do have WBA next, so he will show up probably and we’ll forget about it all until next big one.

Alex Iwobi – 5

Iwobi started okay, both up front and defensively but faded away as the match went on. He was a part of all our attacking efforts while we were actually up to create something but think Wenger was okay to sub him off as he was leaving Nacho to defend alone way too often in the 2nd half.

Alexis Sanchez – 6.5

Alexis is Alexis, one of the only players actually still trying on the pitch AND with an injured foot (or ankle?). Great assist for Walcott, as we all expect from him, but, dear god, I wish he would pass sooner sometimes! And, lets face it, he did nothing in the second half. Could be the injury, could be the “meh” attitude in whole team, but it’s the truth.

Alex Oxlade Chamberlain – 3

Boy, I’m glad Wenger put Ox in five minutes sooner than he usually would! Made so much difference! He had 5 more minutes to… get injured and get taken off.

Olivier Giroud – 4

What was the point anyway?

Mohamed Elneny – 0

Might as well rate AW under Elneny’s rating because why the hell didn’t he put Lucas on instead of him! Both players and Wenger lost this match.