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.
3Forwards
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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