After a chaotic final 10 minutes, Arsenal managed to beat Crystal Palace 3-2 at Selhurst Park on Thursday evening.
The Gunners once again demonstrated how lethal they can be going forward, as well as our fragility at the back during our victory over Palace.
Mesut Ozil, Alexis Sanchez, Jack Wilshere and Alexandre Lacazette were all superb on the attack. However, apart from Shkodran Mustafi, we were shambolic in defence.
Here’s how each player got on:
Midfield
Sead Kolasinac – 6
The Bosnia international didn’t have the best game against Palace. His passing was poor and he allowed Townsend to just run off and score the home side’s first goal.
He completed just 80% of his passes and generally looked a bit clumsy.
Granit Xhaka – 6.5
It wasn’t the worst performance in an Arsenal shirt from the midfielder.
As ever, his pass completion rate was high – 90% – and he had the odd shot. Three to be exact. However, he wasn’t as bad as he has been previously this season.
Jack Wilshere – 9
The midfielder linked up well with Xhaka and Ozil, and really ran the show. His assist for Alexis’ second goal was brilliant and he even had two shots himself.
The 25-year-old, who’s out of contract at the end of the season, also completed two dribbles and a tackle. He was dispossessed four times but this was probably down to being so heavily involved with the game.
He also completed 94% of his passes.
Hector Bellerin – 6
Is Bellerin broken? The right-back used to be quick and now he doesn’t even have that in his – excuse me – Arsenal.
What happened? Is he injured or did Barcelona seriously unsettle the 22-year-old this much?
The right wing-back completed just 74% of his passes and failed to make any sort of positive impact on the game. In fact, he was lucky not to help Palace score late on when he allowed Zaha to attempt a header while standing right next to Cech. Luckily, the ball hit the 25-year-old’s shoulder and bounced away.
Next up, forwards