Arsenal had to fight hard for their 11th consecutive win on Thursday night, but they managed to grind out a 1-0 victory in the end.

In arguably the most difficult fixture of Arsenal’s Europa League group stage, they travelled to Lisbon to face Sporting at the Estádio José Alvalade. The hosts hadn’t lost at the stadium for over a year, and Arsenal weren’t at full strength, with injuries and two Premier League games in close proximity affecting the clash.

As a result, it wasn’t the best performance we’ve seen from the team this season, but they got the job done.

Let’s have a look at our individual player ratings.

Goalkeeper and Defence

Bernd Leno 7.5

Leno didn’t have a save to make in the 90 minutes, but he did have to make a couple of high claims and sweep up the danger when the ball was played in behind the defence. The goalkeeper’s distribution was generally good, though not quite as impressive as against Leicester.

Stephan Lichtsteiner 6.5

There’s no doubt that Lichtsteiner loves to get under the skin of Arsenal’s opponents, and he did so again on Thursday in a few fiery incidents. Defensively he did well enough, but offensively he was disappointing.

The Gunners gave the right-back plenty of chances to get the ball in, and he couldn’t find a teammate with a single cross, nor create one chance over the 90 minutes. He preferred to cut inside and lay the ball off far too often.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos 8.5

Back in the team after injury, Sokratis showed the Arsenal fans exactly what they’ve been missing without him. He won all of his attempted tackles, two-thirds of his aerial duels and 75% of his duels overall, not giving the Sporting strikers an inch. That was a large part of the reason the hosts didn’t have a shot on target.

The Greek’s passing was also more accurate than anyone else in the team, at 94% accuracy, including both of his long balls finding their target.

Rob Holding 8

Holding also had a very good game in general, with the exception of one poor moment in the first half. He gifted the ball to Nani, and the former Manchester United man almost found the top corner with a curling effort from outside the box. It was the closest Sporting came to a goal, though it would’ve been a world class finish if it’d gone in.

Other than that, the Englishman was very solid, making more clearances and winning more aerial duels than anyone else on the team. His partnership with Sokratis shows a lot of promise.

Granit Xhaka 7.5

Xhaka did a very good job considering the circumstances, playing out of position to allow Nacho Monreal and Sead Kolasinac to continue their recoveries. It wasn’t a perfect performance by any means, particularly when it came to getting to the line and putting a cross in.

Defensively, though, the Swiss international exceeded expectations, with many worried that Sporting’s tricky wingers would have a field day against him. That wasn’t the case.

Midfield

Mohamed Elneny 6.5

Elneny continues to struggle when asked to provide more for the team creatively. He does a solid enough job defensively but doesn’t appear to have any ambition to find a pass through the lines or to set a winger/full-back free.

That’s a problem, as Guendouzi, Xhaka and Torreira can all do a similarly good job off the ball whilst offering more on it as well. It was no surprise to see the Egyptian taken off first when Arsenal needed a second-half goal.

Matteo Guendouzi 8

In general, this was another good showing from Guendouzi. If I had one criticism, it’s that he sometimes takes an extra touch that he doesn’t need, which led to him being dispossessed as much as anybody else in Thursday’s match.

In his defence, he also had more possession than anybody else, making great use of it with 93% pass accuracy and a couple of chances created. The Frenchman’s long balls were particularly impressive, with eight out of 10 finding their target.

Aaron Ramsey 7

Ramsey had a bit of a frustrating game, where he generally did pretty well but could’ve made so much more of a few positions. He did create three chances, they just weren’t as dangerous as the ones he could’ve made if he’d shown greater awareness of his surroundings. Like Guendouzi, he was also dispossessed too often.

Forwards

Danny Welbeck 8

Welbeck had to make do with some relatively poor service throughout most of the match and, eventually, he popped up with the winning goal nonetheless. The striker also had a goal rather harshly disallowed after the Sporting defender appeared to slip over.

It’s great to see that Welbeck continues to come up with goals and assists despite his limited starts this season. He should’ve scored another after impressive work from Guendouzi in the box though.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 7

In my opinion, Mkhitaryan came in for way too much criticism from the Arsenal fans on Thursday. His job was made incredibly difficult by Lichtsteiner’s ineffective efforts to support him, meaning he often had to go it alone.

Only Ramsey created more chances than Mkhitaryan, and he had one of Arsenal’s best efforts of the match with a first-half free-kick. He was dispossessed once, but every Arsenal midfielder and forward who started the match was dispossessed once or more.

It wasn’t a great performance, as the Armenian international needed to make more of his chances to cross, but overall he did alright.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 7.5

Surprisingly, Aubameyang couldn’t find the net despite having five chances to do so. He’ll be disappointed not to have put away a one-on-one with the Sporting keeper, but in truth, it was well saved. The striker may also have got a touch on the ball that led to Welbeck’s goal. Even if he didn’t, he did enough to wrong-foot the defender.

Click ‘Next’ for the substitutes

Substitutes

Lucas Torreira 8

Once again, Torreira came on when Arsenal needed to change the game, and he helped them to do so.

The Uruguayan made 42 passes in his 32 minutes on the pitch, as many as Mkhitaryan in the full 90, just eight fewer than Ramsey, and 15 more than Elneny managed in 58 minutes. Of those, four were long balls, all accurate, one of which led to Welbeck’s goal. Torreira could have a big part to play in Arsenal’s future.

Alexandre Lacazette and Alex Iwobi N/A

In all honesty, Lacazette and Iwobi didn’t have anything to do after coming on. It may have been a different story if the score was still 0-0. As it was, they made six passes combined, and that was it.