Arsenal’s long unbeaten run came to an end on Sunday, with a disappointing defeat away to Southampton.
There were some mitigating circumstances to the defeat, with Laurent Koscielny playing his first game back, and every single other senior centre-back either injured or suspended.
Stephan Lichtsteiner and Granit Xhaka had to start the game as centre-backs before yet another injury to Hector Bellerin meant Lichtsteiner had to play at full-back. After Lichtsteiner was also forced off with injury, Arsenal ended the game with Ainsley Maitland-Niles at right-back.
Nonetheless, that’s no excuse for the way Arsenal’s defence threw the game away three times, despite Henrikh Mkhitaryan bringing the Gunners level twice.
Let’s have a look at our individual player ratings for the match.
2Midfield and Wing-Backs
Nacho Monreal 6.5
Monreal put a great cross in for Arsenal’s first goal, and he had a decent game overall. As usual, he was more effective in his attacking work than his defending. Considering he had to play in two different formations in his first start after injury he wasn’t as bad defensively as some others though.
Matteo Guendouzi 6
Guendouzi did his job for the most part, but he could’ve provided a little more quality in the final third. Against Huddersfield, he was Arsenal’s chief chance creator, but on this occasion, he could only make one. He also snatched at a few opportunities to shoot. It wasn’t a poor performance, but he could’ve done a little more to help out at both ends.
Lucas Torreira 7
The shortest player on Arsenal’s team shouldn’t take much of the blame for the fact Southampton dominated in the air all day.
In fact, Torreira actually won as many defensive aerials as anyone else. He also led Arsenal in tackles and was second only to Mkhitaryan in interceptions. It was a pretty standard Torreira performance surrounded by a lot of much poorer showings from teammates.
Hector Bellerin 6
As with Monreal and Guendouzi, this was neither a particularly good nor a particularly poor performance from Bellerin. He did his job and nothing more. However, his match had a negative slant put on it with his injury just before half-time.
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