Arsenal were utterly flat in a deserved 1-0 defeat in the early kick-off against West Ham on Saturday.

The less said about the overall performance the better. Arsenal started fairly brightly, but after West Ham grew into the game in the first half, Unai Emery’s side never got going again. The home side scored soon after the break and that was that. There was no real fight back, or big missed opportunity, the game just disappeared away.

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

Goalkeeper and Centre-Backs

Bernd Leno 5

Made a couple of saves, but wasn’t tested much before or after conceding the goal. Played out from the back decently enough. The finish for the goal was too quick and accurate for Leno to even have time to react to it.

Shkodran Mustafi 3

For the fourth start in a row, Mustafi was subbed off early. This time, it was because Arsenal needed to change formation, but it’s still no surprise that he was the player sacrificed. He didn’t win any aerial duels defensively, and he was caught out of position a couple of times. The one tackle and one interception he made didn’t justify that.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos 6

Sokratis was significantly better than either of his defensive partners. He made more tackles than both of them combined, including one excellent stop on Arnautovic. His passing was also solid, with 97% accuracy and all of his long balls finding their targets. He still suffered from some positioning errors, and the back line never seemed in sync.

Laurent Koscielny 4

Similar to Mustafi, Koscielny looked pretty weak defensively, his worst moment coming when he played Arnautovic onside in a move that should have led to a Felipe Anderson goal in the first half. His passing was good, so that’s the one thing he had over his German teammate.

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

Midfield and Wing-Backs

Ainsley Maitland-Niles 3

Defensively, Maitland-Niles did a pretty decent job of tracking back and covering. In possession, he was a liability, and couldn’t make anything happen in the final third. With 63% pass accuracy and no chances created, it was a far cry from his recent solid performances on the right.

Matteo Guendouzi 3

With Mesut Özil out of the team and Granit Xhaka subbed off early, a lot of the responsibility to build attacks fell to Guendouzi.

Unfortunately, the midfielder didn’t rise to the challenge. He took a number of long shots when he should’ve passed, even if one of them did almost end up going in. When he did pass, he either played it too safe or failed to find his target, and ultimately he didn’t create any chances.

Granit Xhaka 3

Xhaka’s poor header led to West Ham’s only goal of the game, which is likely what resulted in his substitution soon afterwards. He was performing decently, if unimpressively, before the mistake, and Arsenal were terrible in possession after he went off. Nonetheless, you can’t give away goals and expect to stay on.

Sead Kolasinac 5

Kolasinac started brightly and got in behind a couple of times, and it was only a good interception from Declan Rice that prevented the Bosnian’s cutback reaching Alexandre Lacazette in a dangerous position.

Once West Ham realised that they could shut down the Gunners’ attack simply by marking Kolasinac, it all fell apart. After that, the wing-back was involved in very little.

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Forwards

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 3

Even in the first half, when Arsenal were putting together some good attacks, Aubameyang wasn’t involved as much as he’d have liked to be. He had one chance to score with a header and wasted it, and got through on goal on one other occasion but skied his effort.

Alexandre Lacazette 5

Lacazette was really bright at first, and he’d had four shots before 20 minutes had been played, going close once or twice. Unfortunately, those were the only four chances he had all game. His hold up play was also good early on and got worse as the game went on.

Alex Iwobi 7

Iwobi had a good game, despite all the poor performances around him. He completed five of his six attempted dribbles, created more chances than any other starter and also went the closest to scoring with a weak-footed shot that crept just wide. He made good decisions on the counter-attack and it’s just a shame he was the only one who did.

Still, his performance dropped off at roughly the same time everyone else’s did, with 30 minutes to go.

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Substitutes

Lucas Torreira 5

Torreira needed to start the game alongside Xhaka, not come on for him. His defensive abilities were barely required at all after coming on, and he couldn’t help Arsenal make a goal of their own. He didn’t do anything wrong, he was just the wrong player to be brought on at that moment.

Aaron Ramsey 6

Ramsey was the only player other than Iwobi to create more than one chance, and he made both of his almost immediately after coming on. It was the only spell in the second half where Arsenal looked like scoring, which is a credit to the Welshman. Nonetheless, he was as ineffective as everybody else after that.

Hector Bellerin 5

Bellerin came on for the last 20 minutes but there was little he could do to make a difference playing at full-back with Arsenal struggling to get the ball up the pitch.