Arsenal suffered a frustrating and rather embarrassing 1-0 defeat to BATE Borisov in the first leg of their Europa League round-of-32 clash on Thursday.

Though they still have the second leg to redeem themselves, Unai Emery’s side couldn’t have put themselves in a much worse position than the one they’ve ended up in.

The Gunners failed to score an away goal, which could be their downfall if Borisov score just one at the Emirates (leaving Arsenal needing three). They also got their second top scorer and top assist provider for the season suspended for the return fixture.

The problems were largely down to the system Emery chose to employ, rather than individual faults, but with that in mind, let’s have a look at our player ratings for the fixture.

Goalkeeper and Centre-Backs

Petr Čech 5

Čech perhaps could’ve done better for the goal, as it went right over his head, although it was from close range and had a lot of pace on it. Other than that, he made a few decent saves when called upon, which wasn’t particularly often, and his distribution was very good.

Shkodran Mustafi 3

Mustafi didn’t have a good game, but he was also one of the biggest victims of the system Unai Emery was employing. He’s not good enough in possession to make anything happen bar playing it out to Maitland-Niles or back to Koscielny.

It was pointless having him on the pitch, and his performance highlighted how wrong it was to go into a game like this with three at the back.

Laurent Koscielny 6

Koscielny made a couple of important tackles/interceptions and generally read Borisov’s attacks pretty well. He also won six aerial duels out of the seven he contested.

The Frenchman had the opposite problem to Mustafi, where he didn’t have any chance to utilise his ability on the ball. He was stuck between two centre-backs playing short passes to one and then the other all game. It would’ve been much better for Arsenal to have him as the right centre-back in a back four.

Nacho Monreal 4

Monreal was better on the ball than Mustafi, but again slightly inhibited by the fact he wasn’t playing his best position on the left. Off the ball, he seemed very vulnerable, and all of Borisov’s most dangerous attacks came from getting in behind him.

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

Midfield and Wing-Backs

Sead Kolašinac 7

Kolašinac remains one of Arsenal’s biggest creative threats, which says more about the setup than anything else. On this occasion he was pretty much Arsenal’s only creator, making seven of their 13 chances. He could’ve made even more but for a couple of slightly overhit passes to him, when he’d picked up good positions.

The defender could have done a little more to prevent the goal, but his strength has never been winning aerial duels.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles 4

After coming in for some unfair criticism after a good performance against Huddersfield, Maitland-Niles put in a showing more worthy of derision on this occasion. His control was loose, as was his passing, and he struggled to create anything going forward. He did make more tackles than anyone else, which was the one redeeming aspect of his game.

Granit Xhaka 5

Xhaka was solid but uninspiring. He played a few nice long balls and kept possession moving pretty well, but he had so little to work with that he ended up mostly just passing back and forth with no real threat of creating anything. His corners were terrible, as were Arsenal’s corner routines in general.

Matteo Guendouzi 3

Guendouzi had probably his worst performance for Arsenal so far. The pitch didn’t help his game, as his usual body feints past opposing players just led to him losing control of the ball. Nonetheless, he did very little to help creatively, and he kept gifting Borisov players the chance to counter-attack.

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Forwards

Henrikh Mkhitaryan 6

Mkhitaryan had a pretty solid game, especially considering his wide partner Maitland-Niles was having such a poor one. He put some good balls into the box that should’ve led to something, and only Kolasinac made more chances than he did. He should’ve done better with his one shot.

Alex Iwobi 7

Iwobi played well, and he was probably Arsenal’s best player. He wasn’t faultless, making a couple of mistakes like everyone else in the team, but he was positive, direct and unlucky his efforts didn’t lead to more. One of the few who didn’t deserve to be on the losing side.

Alexandre Lacazette 3

Lacazette should’ve scored one of a couple of chances in the first half, and when he eventually did put one away it was correctly ruled out for offside. The striker was certainly provoked into his red card, attempting to throw off the cynical foul by the Borisov player, but he still should’ve known better than to lash out.

The 27-year-old was involved in a few pivotal moments, and he let his team down in them.

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Substitutes

Lucas Torreira 5

Torreira wasn’t bad after coming on, but it did seem a bit of a pointless substitution. Presumably, Xhaka was taken off because of his recent injury, but the Uruguayan midfielder was no more incisive and didn’t improve Arsenal’s build-up play after coming on. There was no need for his defensive abilities either, given the circumstances.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 4

Aubameyang didn’t do enough. He needed to provide more of a physical presence in the box, and at least hold the ball up a bit after Lacazette’s red card. The game wasn’t easy for anyone at that point, but it’s your big money signings you look to for inspiration in times like that. He really needs to step up in the second leg now.

Denis Suarez 6

Suarez was lively and direct after coming on, even if he found it just as difficult to produce a final ball as everybody else. Again, it was too late in the game for him to have a real impact, and it would be nice to see him given a bit more of an opportunity in the second leg.