Arsenal were embarrassed by a dominant first-half performance by Wolves in their Premier League clash on Wednesday night, and Unai Emery’s side ended up losing the match 3-1.
With Manchester United facing Manchester City and Chelsea dropping points against Burnley, Arsenal had the opportunity to push ahead of both of their top four rivals with a win over Wolves. It didn’t take long for that dream to die though, with a Ruben Neves free-kick, a Matt Doherty header and a Diogo Jota third making it 3-0 by half-time.
Arsenal didn’t really improve much in the second half, Wolves just stopped attacking as often. Late on, Sokratis Papastathopoulos almost sparked a comeback by heading in a Granit Xhaka corner, but a couple of missed chances in the following minutes ensured it wasn’t to be.
Let’s have a look at our individual player ratings for the match.
Substitutes
Sead Kolasinac 4
The double introduction of Kolasinac and Guendouzi didn’t really change anything. Kolasinac was no more involved in creating than Mkhitaryan had been, though his one defensive aerial was one more defensive action than the Armenian managed.
Matteo Guendouzi 4
Similarly, Guendouzi’s introduction didn’t really add anything that Torreira wasn’t already providing. He attempted a couple more long balls but nothing that actually came off.
Eddie Nketiah 7
Nketiah was Arsenal’s best performer on the night by far. Just minutes after coming on he turned Willy Boly excellently, got his head up and found Lacazette, whose shot was blocked. The youngster won all three of his individual duels and earned a dangerous free-kick with his other attempted dribble.
The striker also saw one weak-foot shot blocked, and completed all of his attempted passes. In just 19 minutes Nketiah did what Mkhitaryan and Iwobi had failed to do for the rest of the match.