Arsenal won a hard-fought three points in Cardiff on Sunday, taking the lead on three separate occasions to eventually finish 3-2 victors.

Cardiff didn’t have a Premier League goal until this weekend, but of course they found their scoring boots against Arsenal. Fortunately the Gunners’ heads never dropped, and they kept finding increasingly impressive ways to take back the lead.

Let’s have a look at how each player did individually on the day.

Goalkeeper and Defence

Petr Cech 4

Arsenal largely relied on Cech’s saves against West Ham United and Chelsea to keep them in the game, but this match was a completely different story. The goalkeeper made one save, conceded two goals, and looked more nervous than ever playing out from the back.

Harry Arter should’ve scored early on from a Cech pass, and that wasn’t the Arsenal man’s only error leading to a shot either. He has to do better than this.

Nacho Monreal 6

As always, Monreal got forward very well, and supported Arsenal’s attacks effectively. The fact he had a one-on-one with the Cardiff goalkeeper at one point emphasised that. At the other end though, Warnock’s side completely took advantage of the Spaniard. He was caught out for their first goal, and never looked comfortable.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos 6.5

Sokratis won most of his duels, made interceptions and clearances and completed a very high percentage of his passes.

At the same time, he didn’t make any tackles, and looked uncomfortable playing the ball with his left foot. Cardiff noticed that early on, and kept pressuring him whenever he tried. That forced the defender to play back to Cech, who was having an even worse game in possession.

Shkodran Mustafi 7.5

For probably the first time this season, Mustafi was Arsenal’s standout defender. He was very dangerous on offensive corners, scoring a header from one and almost adding another later on. Defensively he was more solid than anyone around him too, though still not perfect. Similar to Sokratis, he didn’t win any tackles, which is concerning.

Hector Bellerin 6.5

If you look at the map of Arsenal players’ average positions against Cardiff, you’ll see how impossible Bellerin’s job was on the day.

He was playing the right-hand side of the pitch on his own, and unsurprisingly had trouble doing so.

It wasn’t the right-back’s best performance as a result, and he could’ve done more for the first Cardiff goal. Nonetheless, given the circumstances, the Spaniard was actually fairly solid in general.

Midfield

Granit Xhaka 6

Yes, it was a terrible pass from Xhaka, and a very poorly timed one, that led to Cardiff’s first goal. The reaction from fans afterwards was completely ridiculous though.

Firstly, there’s no way that pass should’ve resulted in a goal. Cardiff made multiple passes and crosses afterwards, giving Arsenal plenty of time to win the ball back. If the Gunners concede every time they lose the ball in the middle of the pitch, we may as well fold the club now.

More importantly, it was one bad pass in a good performance. Xhaka assisted the first goal for Arsenal, he missed that one long ball but completed his other six, he made as many tackles as the entire defence combined, won seven duels, made two interceptions, etc.

Matteo Guendouzi 6

Guendouzi didn’t really do anything wrong, and most of his passes found their targets as usual. At the same time, he probably had his most ineffective game so far.

For whatever reason he just struggled to influence the game, and didn’t provide much cover for the defence either. Xhaka certainly looked a lot more in control alongside Torreira.

Aaron Ramsey 7

Ramsey started the match very well, making intelligent runs forward and getting into dangerous positions. Then he dropped off a bit, and started to give the ball away too often. Eventually he composed himself again though, and created four chances over the 90 minutes, more than anybody else.

Forwards

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 8

It took a while for Aubameyang to really make an impact on the game, but when he did it was an eye-catching finish from outside the box that gave Arsenal a 2-1 lead. The striker really needed to get going after a few goalless games, and hopefully this should help him kick on now.

Mesut Özil 7

Quietly ran the show from behind the scenes, without ever really catching the eye. He drifted into the middle a bit too often, leaving Bellerin on his own, but did some nice work when he was on the ball. Overall a pleasingly solid showing, and hopefully the start of a big comeback.

Alexandre Lacazette 9.5

Lacazette scored one and assisted one, but take both of those away and I’d still peg him as Arsenal’s most impressive starter. He held up the ball for his teammates impressively for the full 90 minutes, creating three chances, the second most on the team.

With Cardiff players aware of Lacazette’s ability to bring others into the game, they backed off him to cover passing lanes, which gave the Frenchman an early opportunity to go for goal, hitting the post.

The striker’s assist was a well-improvised flick, and his goal combined a ridiculous amount of power and accuracy from a tight angle. A fantastic all-round performance.

Substitutes

Lucas Torreira 9

Lacazette made a convincing case for more starts for the full 90 minutes, and Torreira did exactly the same in every minute of his appearance from the bench. Assisting the winning goal, the midfielder didn’t put a foot wrong throughout his 20 minute spell.

Torreira completed 100% of his passes, including both of his long balls, he won six out of six duels, completed his only attempted dribble, won two free-kicks (both yellow cards for Cardiff players), and won three out of three attempted tackles. He also made an interception, and of course got that game-winning assist.

My only complaint is that we only got to see him for 20 minutes. He has to start Arsenal’s next game.

Danny Welbeck N/A

Welbeck came on for the final few minutes, completed his four passes, and that was it.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan N/A

Same as Welbeck, except he only made one pass, and was on the pitch for even less time.