Arsenal slipped to a new low over the weekend, losing a fourth consecutive match, 2-1 against newly promoted Brighton & Hove Albion.
The showing wasn’t good enough from the entire team, but there were one or two performances that stood out, for positive or negative reasons.
Here are our individual player ratings:
2Midfield
Granit Xhaka 5
Xhaka had a decent game, not that he’ll get credit for it from Arsenal fans. He won the majority of his aerial duels and all of his tackles, and for once you couldn’t put any blame on him for the goals his side conceded.
Then he assisted Aubameyang well at the other end. He created more chances than Wilshere, Iwobi and Özil combined on the day. I’ll never understand his decision to shoot from his free-kick roughly 40 yards out, but other than that he played well.
Jack Wilshere 3
Wilshere did one thing well against Brighton, and that was dribble past opponents and win free-kicks. Other than that, it was an average performance. He did next to nothing to contribute defensively, didn’t make any chances, and delayed his passes too often. Plus he was caught in possession a couple of times.
He also went smashing through a Brighton player in the first half, and still thought it was a good idea to square up to their players on a yellow in the second.
Mesut Özil 3
Like Wilshere, Özil just didn’t do enough at either end. His attitude was also off after the team went 2-0 down. He still managed to make a chance or two, complete most of his passes and all of his dribbles, but he didn’t step up to the challenge like Arsenal needed him to.