Arsenal finished their first game of the new year 4-1 winners against Fulham at the Emirates Stadium, a scoreline which doesn’t quite reflect how close the game was at times.

Arsenal started 2019 with a rare first-half lead, thanks to Granit Xhaka, though they easily could’ve conceded at least one in the opening period. In the second half, Alexandre Lacazette doubled the lead, but Fulham finally made one of their chances count to make it 2-1.

Aaron Ramsey came off the bench to score and kill the game before Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang added some gloss to the result in the final minutes, keeping his challenge for the Golden Boot going.

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

Goalkeeper and Centre-Backs

Bernd Leno 6

It’s the same story again for Leno. He makes a few good saves, concedes one he didn’t really have any chance with and continues his growing run without a clean sheet. It’s five games in a row without one now, and two clean sheets in 15 Premier League games in total. His distribution could’ve been a little better on the day, but Fulham pressed well.

Shkodran Mustafi 4

As at Anfield, Mustafi only lasted one half before having to come off with an injury problem. He also really wasn’t very impressive during his time on the pitch.

The German had a number of poor first touches, making his passes considerably more difficult to execute. That partly explains why he was the only defender to have less than 80% pass accuracy, with 69%. He won a few aerials but lost just as many, and he didn’t make any tackles. Clearly, he still wasn’t fully fit before he came off.

Sokratis Papastathopoulos 6.5

Sokratis had a pretty decent game, though he has to take some of the blame for the number of chances Arsenal conceded. The Greek international’s best moment was at the other end of the pitch, taking on a couple of players before getting a shot away. He also led the side in tackles won.

Laurent Koscielny 7

Koscielny was caught out by Ryan Sessegnon early in the first half, and he was lucky the youngster didn’t punish him for it. However, after that, he really grew into the game, winning all of his nine individual duels and making as many clearances and interceptions as anyone on the team.

The Frenchman’s passing was also very good, he just needs to try and get through a full 90 minutes without an error like the one for the Sessegnon chance now.

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

Midfield and Wing-Backs

Ainsley Maitland-Niles 7.5

It’s great that Unai Emery is finding a way to fit Maitland-Niles into the team because he definitely adds something to the side. The 21-year-old is one of few who will take players on and put a cross in, with most of the rest of the wide options and full-backs more reliant on overlapping runs. Unsurprisingly, Ainsley led Arsenal in dribbles completed.

At the same time, one area the midfielder-turned-wing-back showed he has room for improvement was in defending opposition overlaps. Particularly at right-back, Maitland-Niles lost track of his man once or twice. Other than that it was a good performance.

Matteo Guendouzi 7

Guendouzi perhaps could’ve tracked Aboubakar Kamara a bit better for Fulham’s goal, though it was a great ball in by Sessegnon. On the ball, he was pretty good, but not quite as impressive as he has been at times this season. It seems like the 19-year-old could benefit from a rest at some point in the next few weeks.

Granit Xhaka 7.5

Xhaka had a bit of a strange game. In the first half, he made more mistakes than he would’ve liked, but he then scored the only goal before the break. He could even have had a second goal not long later. At the time, it was one of his worse performances this season, yet he was the reason Arsenal were winning.

After that, Xhaka improved and found his rhythm, ending the match having created three chances and completed all nine of his long balls. The second half performance combined with the first half goal threat just about cancels out the negatives early on.

Sead Kolasinac 8.5

Kolasinac was Arsenal’s chief chance creator, making four in the 90 minutes. One of those was converted by Alexandre Lacazette to add to the Bosnian wing-back’s assist tally. He also had a solid game defensively, with most of the major errors coming from the centre-backs behind him.

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Forwards

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 8

Aubameyang had plenty of big chances throughout the match, which is a testament to his impressive movement and positioning. He went close with a good header and hit the post for a rebound which Aaron Ramsey finished off, but also should’ve done better when one-on-one with the goalkeeper in the second half.

The striker eventually got his goal, and that one-on-one was the only chance you could really accuse him of wasting. The others were just a little unlucky. Hopefully, next game he puts a few more away.

Alexandre Lacazette 7.5

Lacazette took his goal very nicely, and it was great to see him end his mini-drought. You could tell it was starting to get to him, particularly as he took on a shot in the first half when he could’ve squared for Aubameyang to tap in. The Frenchman was also dispossessed a bit too often.

Nonetheless, Arsenal have generally looked a lot better with Lacazette on the pitch recently, so you could understand why the crowd was unhappy to see him go off. At the same time, it turned out to be a great tactical decision, and the booing didn’t help anyone. Lacazette’s reaction to the sub was positive and noted by Emery afterwards.

Alex Iwobi 7.5

Like Granit Xhaka, Iwobi had some very good moments and some not so good ones. He actually set up the Swiss international for the opening goal, as well as creating a couple more chances.

However, he also weighted a few passes pretty badly, particularly for players making runs in behind. That’s usually something he’s much better at. Overall, it was a good performance though.

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Substitutes

Lucas Torreira 7

Torreira had a decent half, completing a greater percentage of his passes than any of the starters and winning the ball back once or twice. However, he was hindered by the referee, who refused to give him free-kicks for blatant fouls whilst giving fouls against him for good tackles.

Torreira has won 49 free-kicks for Arsenal this season, more than any other player on the team by far (the next closest is Guendouzi on 35). It’s bizarre, therefore, that Graham Scott didn’t give him a single one.

Aaron Ramsey 8.5

With speculation surrounding his future reaching new levels this week, it was nice to see Ramsey continuing to focus on the task at hand on the pitch. He scored just minutes after coming on to kill the game, and he didn’t misplace any of his passes in the final quarter of an hour.

Bukayo Saka N/A

Saka made a couple of nice runs and put pressure on a Fulham defender to force a mistake leading to the fourth goal. However, he didn’t spend much time on the pitch and Arsenal mostly had the ball on the right-hand side during his cameo.

Even without making a significant contribution to the match, it’s fantastic to see an academy product who won’t even be 18 years old until next season making his Premier League debut.