Arsenal suffered a predictable and fairly dull defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
No one really expected anything other than a defeat this weekend, as City tried to bounce back from a shock against Newcastle and Arsenal travelled without a number of key defensive and midfield players thanks to injury. Still, that’s no excuse for how straightforward it all was for City.
The Gunners actually gave the hosts a pretty good first half, but a goal right before half-time killed the game, and both teams may as well have taken the remaining 45 minutes off.
Let’s have a look at our individual player ratings for the match.
4Substitutes
Aaron Ramsey 5
Ramsey was pretty lively and involved in the play after coming on, but it wasn’t enough to make any real difference to the way Arsenal were playing. He couldn’t make or take any chances on goal, which is what he needed to do if the team were going to get back into the game.
Denis Suarez 5
Suarez had a nervy first couple of minutes, where he got dispossessed and gave the ball away for a throw-in. After that, the new loan signing settled a bit and played the same solid and uninspiring football everyone on the pitch was playing at that point, completing 90% of his passes but very few that progressed the play forwards.
We can’t really judge how his Arsenal spell will go based on a 20-minute cameo where the team mostly couldn’t even get the ball to him.
Konstantinos Mavropanos 6
Mavropanos was typically fearless after coming on, throwing himself into a couple of challenges and trying to play passes half the length of the field. Though only one of his two attempted long balls came off, it shows his confidence in his own ability, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see the defender get more chances for the next few months.