Arsenal finally got back to winning ways on Sunday after three consecutive league draws, beating high-flying AFC Bournemouth 2-1 at the Vitality Stadium.

This was always going to be a tough match, given Bournemouth’s attacking prowess, and they didn’t disappoint on that front. Arsenal had to pull off a few last-ditch challenges and blocks to prevent the home side taking the lead early on, and they got a bit of help via a dodgy offside decision from the linesman.

Perhaps riding their luck at that stage, the Gunners eventually grew into the game, and they had the better of the chances for the most part. It was all about grinding out the result on this occasion, so we can’t complain, even if the performance wasn’t always vintage Arsenal.

Let’s have a look at our individual ratings for the match:

Goalkeeper and Centre-Backs

Bernd Leno 8

Leno wasn’t far away from saving Joshua King’s goal, but it wasn’t an easy stop by any means. For the rest of the match, the German was very solid, particularly towards the end of the game when he had to deal with a number of high balls into the box. In total, the 26-year-old had to make five saves, a couple more than Begovic at the other end.

Rob Holding 6.5

Holding was a little shaky at times, and he played a couple of lazy passes to Bournemouth players. He had plenty of good moments too, but this wasn’t quite as much of an assured performance as the Englishman’s other games recently. Perhaps the change in system threw him off a bit.

Shkodran Mustafi 7

In general, Mustafi played a good game, but he should’ve committed the tactical foul on the Bournemouth man just before half-time, and he took a big risk giving away a free-kick right at the end. Excluding those two moments, he might’ve been Arsenal’s best defender, winning a lot of tackles and aerial duels.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos 7.5

Sokratis didn’t make any major individual errors like his centre-back partners. It still wasn’t a perfect performance, and he found himself on the wrong side of Bournemouth attackers a couple of times. That’s probably to be expected from a player making his first league start since September.

Nonetheless, his passing was excellent and he fought hard throughout the 90 minutes to keep the Bournemouth attackers at bay.

Click ‘Next’ for Midfield, Wing-Backs, Forwards and Substitutes

Midfield and Wing-Backs

Hector Bellerin 7

Bellerin got forward well and kept a couple of attacks alive when the ball looked lost. At the same time, he has to take his share of the blame for not tracking Brooks for the Bournemouth goal.

It’s not easy to make a recovery run in the last minute of a half, but it was certainly necessary on this occasion. Otherwise, it was a very decent performance from the Spaniard.

Lucas Torreira 8

Other than Lerma, Torreira was Arsenal’s biggest goal threat in the first half, bizarrely. He hit the post and had another good chance in a period where the Gunners were mostly on the back foot.

As the game went on, normality resumed, and the Uruguayan got back to doing what he does best, breaking up play and recycling possession. He ended up coming off as Arsenal tried to see out the game, presumably with an upcoming difficult fixture list in mind.

Granit Xhaka 7.5

Xhaka had a pretty good performance in general, spending more time on the ball than anyone else, as usual. He was dispossessed once but so were all of the starting midfielders and forwards bar Torreira.

The Arsenal fans kept begging Xhaka to shoot but I’m glad he resisted the urge. Having a crack from well outside the box usually only results in turning over possession.

Sead Kolasinac 8.5

Back in his favoured wing-back position, Kolasinac bounced back from a poor performance against Wolves to play a big part in both goals against Bournemouth.

It was his cross that Lerma turned into his own net for Arsenal’s opener and his pass across the box to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang that led to the winner. He even had a chance of his own to score, but could only find the side netting. The Bosnian defender was solid defensively too, and no one made more tackles than him.

Click ‘Next’ for Forwards and Substitutes

Forwards

Alex Iwobi 7.5

Iwobi tested Begovic well with a couple of shots on target, and he played the pass of the match in the build-up to Arsenal’s winning goal. He did have one or two periods where he couldn’t really affect the game too though. Overall, he looked much better back on the left.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 6.5

A typically enigmatic performance from Mkhitaryan. He got into great areas, had far more shots than anybody else, created the joint-most chances, yet never looked particularly good. It probably didn’t help that only one of his seven shots was on target.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 8

Without Alexandre Lacazette in the squad to fall back on, the pressure was really all on Aubameyang to get Arsenal the goal they needed on Sunday. He did just that midway through the second half, despite having a pretty quiet performance to that point.

At the end of the day, as long as he’s scoring, that’s all that really matters. Let’s just hope he does the same in Arsenal’s next two league games.

Click ‘Next’ for Substitutes

Substitutes

Matteo Guendouzi 7

Guendouzi came on for the final 10 minutes and saw out the win, set with the tough task of replacing Lucas Torreira. The midfielder continues to prove an effective alternative to Xhaka or Torreira despite his age.

Aaron Ramsey 7

Ramsey had a couple of nice touches and one not so nice one. He redeemed his one mistake with a very solid tackle and created a decent chance. It seems the Welshman is set to continue his bit-part role in the league team, but will likely start in the Europa League on Thursday as Arsenal try to secure top spot in the group.

Eddie Nketiah N/A

Nketiah didn’t get a touch in his minute on the pitch, but it was still great to see him subbed on. The young striker has had to wait a few months now for his first senior minutes of the season, but this brief appearance shows Emery trusts him as an option in the league.

Hopefully, he’ll follow it up with another game against Vorskla on Thursday. Aubameyang and Lacazette could use the rest after their recent injuries.