Arsenal fell disappointingly short on Thursday night in Madrid, failing to match the away goal Atletico scored in North London and ending up on the end of a 1-0 defeat.
In the end, the result means Arsenal won’t play in next season’s Champions League. The team knew that’s what was on the line, but they couldn’t do enough over the two legs to prevent another year of Europa League football.
Truthfully, Arsenal lost the tie before they even went to Spain. That away goal from Antoine Griezmann gave Arsene Wenger’s side a near impossible task. Still, it’s difficult to defend their lacklustre efforts to complete it.
For most of the match, despite their desperate need for a goal, the team didn’t even look like they believed they could score one. This was far from the ‘give everything for Wenger’ performance they promised us. Instead, the manager will have to settle for sixth and no trophies in his final season.
Here are the individual player ratings:
Defence
David Ospina 3
Ospina did make a few saves, but none were particularly impressive. He didn’t do well enough for the goal, and I was left asking whether he’s brave enough to be a top level goalkeeper.
You never see him charge out and make himself big when one-on-one. Instead he just gambles in the direction he thinks the shot is going. He also isn’t at all commanding in the box. The latter issue led to multiple mix-ups with the defence, and he was fortunate not to see one of those result in a goal.
This may well be the last match we see him play for Arsenal, and I can’t see too many people worrying about that.
Hector Bellerin 2.5
Bellerin had a tough night, and this was a really poor performance from him, but I want to clarify that he does have the excuse of playing two full matches in the 6 days prior. He was excellent in the first leg, and decent against Manchester United, but nowhere near good enough in Madrid.
His crosses were inaccurate, he looked nervous on the ball, and he lost Diego Costa for the goal. When he got back to challenge the striker he was easily pushed aside.
Shkodran Mustafi 4
As so often with Mustafi, he came out of this match with a load of tackles, interceptions and aerials won, but also a number of mistakes that don’t go down in the stats. Like the rest of the defence, he really struggled to play out from the back effectively.
Laurent Koscielny N/A
Koscielny contested a couple of early aerials and then suffered an injury that just made Arsenal’s night more difficult. There’s no way the club should rely on having him available next season. He only had five touches, so I can’t rely give him a rating.
Nacho Monreal 3
Before the game I saw some people arguing that Monreal has been our player of the season, but he looked anything but on Thursday night. He allowed Costa in during the first half with a terrible mistake which went unpunished. He also got into plenty of good attacking positions and made nothing of any of them.
Midfield
Granit Xhaka 6
For me, Xhaka was probably Arsenal’s man of the match. He was far from perfect, but he worked hard all match, and had the team’s only shot on target. He ran the game in his usual way, seeing more of the ball than anyone else. That’s not to say he didn’t need to do more, but he played well enough overall.
Jack Wilshere 4
Every game I grow more and more frustrated at the way Wilshere hides from the ball when he doesn’t feel like getting involved. He’s quite happy to leave his defence stranded and then throw his hands up when they lose the ball. His work in possession was actually pretty decent, which just makes it all the more frustrating.
Aaron Ramsey 5
Ramsey gave a lot defensively, making seven tackles, the most of any player on the pitch. On the ball he struggled to make anything happen, not creating any chances, not managing a shot on target and achieving the lowest pass accuracy of any outfield player except the injured Koscielny, and Bellerin. At least he didn’t give up on trying though.
Attack
Mesut Özil 5
Özil needed to do more than this to get Arsenal the win, but again there were plenty of worse performers. Believe it or not he was second only to Ramsey in terms of number of tackles made. That probably tells you all you need to know about how he unfortunately spent his time on the pitch. Just the one chance created, which wasn’t enough.
Danny Welbeck 4
Wenger took a gamble playing Welbeck instead of Henrikh Mkhitaryan. In fairness, you can understand why, with the team needing a goal and Mkhitaryan’s injury. It didn’t pay off, as Welbeck didn’t have a single shot throughout the match. Even the Armenian managed more from the bench.
Alexandre Lacazette 5
Lacazette really didn’t have much help around him, but he played a pretty good game, hardly ever passing the ball away, and creating chances for his teammates. On the other hand, the one time he had a chance himself he chose not to shoot, and his touch around the goalkeeper was too heavy.
Substitutes
Calum Chambers 4.5
Although he looked a little shaky, I thought Chambers was actually Arsenal’s best defender on the night. It was a lot to ask for him to come and step into Koscielny’s shoes against Costa and Griezmann. He made a couple of great tackles to ensure the team’s hopes of an equaliser stayed alive, but it wasn’t to be.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan 5.5
He should’ve started. It’s easy to say in hindsight, but it’s true. He looked lively after coming on, hit his shot nicely, and completed all his passes and dribbles. It was just too late.