Arsenal eased past FC Vorskla on Thursday, with a 4-2 scoreline that ended up flattering the visitors, if anything.

Unai Emery picked a fairly strong side to ensure the win in Arsenal’s opening Europa League fixture, making it four victories in a row in all competitions. It took a while for the team to get going, as many didn’t seem to be on the same wavelength. Once the first goal went in though, the game opened up and the Gunners never looked in trouble.

Vorskla got a couple of very late goals, but even then the feeling was more disappointment than fear the away side might actually come back into the game.

Let’s have a look at how the individual players did on the night.

Goalkeeper and Defence

Bernd Leno 6.5

There was really nothing Leno could do about the goals, with both so powerful and at such close range. He made one save other than that, but as expected the biggest improvement was on the ball. The goalkeeper completed 91% of his passes, and looked comfortable throughout.

Unfortunately we’re still going to need more time to assess Leno’s shot-stopping, because there was nothing to test him here, other than shots that no keeper would save.

Stephan Lichtsteiner 5.5

Lichtsteiner didn’t make a great case for more regular involvement in the team on this occasion, as he was at fault for Vorskla’s first goal. The Swiss international couldn’t get out quickly enough to stop the cross for the away side’s second either. It wasn’t all bad though, and he did get an assist at the other end at least.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos 8

Once again, Sokratis was Arsenal’s best defender, making some great recovery tackles, winning duels and completing a greater percentage of his passes than anyone else on the team bar Aubameyang.

With all the goals Unai Emery’s side have conceded this campaign, it’s really difficult to think of any that were Sokratis’ fault. That’s a sign of how consistent he’s been in a pretty poor defence, so far.

Rob Holding 7

Holding did a solid job in his first start of the season, and like Sokratis he was a bit unlucky to be part of a defence that let two goals in. He wasn’t quite as busy as his centre-back partner on the night, but did well enough when called upon.

Nacho Monreal 7

Monreal had a very quiet game defensively, only contesting one tackle, one aerial and making three clearances in the entire 90 minutes. He did a good job helping out the attack as usual, without doing anything particularly eye-catching.

Midfield

Lucas Torreira 7.5

For the first time, Torreira got himself a competitive start for Arsenal. The Uruguayan made good use of it, with a busy 57 minute performance. He had to get involved a bit more creatively than perhaps he would alongside Granit Xhaka, but showed he was capable of doing so, making a couple of chances. His free-kick went close as well.

Mohamed Elneny 6.5

Perhaps this is harsh, but I can’t think of any other midfield player who completes 95% of his passes without ever really getting involved in the build up offensively.

Elneny loses possession so rarely, but he needs to do more with it. It’s not as if he’s racking up the interceptions and tackles either, as he didn’t make any on the night. It wasn’t a bad performance, but it really wasn’t a good one either.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 7.5

This was a Mkhitaryan showing that summed up his performances with Arsenal so far. He was actually pretty sloppy on the ball, completing the second lowest percentage of passes on the team and getting dispossessed as much as anyone. Nonetheless, his interception and pass led to the first goal, then he assisted the second and the third.

Somehow, even if he looks a bit off, Mkhitaryan still gets involved in the goals. No one has been directly involved in more this season. If he could just tighten up his possession he’d become indispensable.

Forwards

Alex Iwobi 7.5

Iwobi had an extremely similar game to Mkhitaryan. He was dispossessed and gave the ball away a fair bit, but when it counted, he found the right pass for the opening goal. The 22-year-old created four chances, which was more than anyone else.

Danny Welbeck 8

Welbeck had a pretty underrated performance. He got a goal, but also completed a lot of forward dribbles to progress the play, whilst also losing the ball less than the likes of Iwobi and Mkhitaryan. Hopefully he’ll continue to make the most of his opportunities like this.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 8.5

This is the performance we’ve been waiting for from Aubameyang, and hopefully the one that kick-starts his season. He scored twice and should’ve had a third, hitting the post, despite only spending 57 minutes on the pitch. He completed all of his passes, and retained the ball a lot better than he has sometimes recently.

Emery likely gave Aubameyang this start in the hope that the striker could grab a couple of goals and build his confidence, and it worked.

Substitutes

Mesut Özil 8.5

As soon as Özil stepped onto the pitch, the quality of Arsenal’s play seemed to go up. Immediately he was involved in a beautiful one-touch move down the right-hand side which should’ve resulted in a goal. A few minutes later the German had a goal of his own.

Unfortunately, the rest of the team then went to sleep and his impressive play was mostly wasted.

Matteo Guendouzi 7

If I’m being ultra-critical, Guendouzi was the player who should’ve picked up Sharpar for the second goal. He was too worried about what was going on behind him to see the real danger coming from midfield. Other than that, the youngster did well, as he has done for most of the campaign so far.

Emile Smith Rowe 8

This was an exciting, if brief, debut appearance from Arsenal’s highly rated 18-year-old. He took on players with ease, as he always does, and linked up well with his teammates. Certainly a lot more to come from the youngster.