Arsenal gave away another lead in an incredibly boring draw away to Vitoria to drop their first points of the Europa League group stage.

Vitoria 1-1 Arsenal

It’s the same old story once again. Arsenal played poorly, creating very little and being outshot by their opponents. They somehow took the lead anyway, then let it slip. Am I talking about Watford? Wolves? Crystal Palace? No, this time it was Vitoria inflicting the same misery on us.

Shkodran Mustafi got the Arsenal goal from a Nicolas Pepe set-piece, but it was only fitting that the team conceded a silly late equaliser after a dire performance. Let’s have a look at our player ratings for the match.

Goalkeeper and Centre-Backs

• Emi Martinez 5.5 – Made a couple of good saves in the first half, but he flapped at the cross for the equalising goal. It wasn’t an easy catch but he needed to get more on it.
• Sokratis Papastathopoulos 5 – Made a mistake leading to a shot with a poor clearance in the first half, and he was too cautious with his passing.
• Shkodran Mustafi 7.5 – The best of the back three by far, Mustafi defended well for the most part and at least tried to play forward. He also scored what should have been the winning goal for Arsenal, though he could’ve scored another header earlier on too.
• Rob Holding 4.5 – Too easily dribbled past for the equaliser, allowing the cross in which eventually led to the goal. Also missed a fantastic opportunity to score from a Saka header in the first half.

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

Midfield, Wing-Backs and Forwards

• Ainsley Maitland-Niles 5.5 – Continues to have trouble with straightforward short passes. He only completed 75% of them despite all of Arsenal’s possession, the lowest of any starter. His recovery runs were good as usual.
• Dani Ceballos 4 – Had a poor first half, making slow inaccurate passes and offering little with his set-piece delivery. At first, he seemed to be improving after the break, then he pulled up with an injury and had to be replaced.
• Joe Willock 7.5 – A strange choice to come off for Torreira, as Willock was having a good game. He helped push Arsenal forward with four completed dribbles from four attempts, he won nine of his 12 duels and made 92% of his passes including all three long balls. He also made four tackles.
• Kieran Tierney 6.5 – Tierney continues to prove threatening with his crosses into the box, and he made some great tackles too. Perhaps the formation didn’t help, but Vitoria players seemed to get a run on him a bit too often.
• Nicolas Pépé 7.5 – Another three chances created, Pépé was certainly a threat on set-pieces again, setting up Mustafi’s goal with a free-kick. He also made five tackles, more than anyone else on the team.
• Bukayo Saka 6 – Put in one really good cross for Holding to head over, but he struggled to be involved in much of the rest of the game before his substitution.
• Gabriel Martinelli 6 – Also struggled to play much of a part in the game, waiting around in forward areas for passes and crosses that never came.

Substitutes

• Matteo Guendouzi 7 – A significant improvement on Ceballos in terms of his positivity, long-passing and forward runs. He brought some energy the team had been lacking too, it’s just a shame few others replicated it.
• Alexandre Lacazette 6 – Like Martinelli and Saka, Lacazette was barely involved in forward areas, because Arsenal struggled so badly to get the ball into them.
• Lucas Torreira 6 – A really strange choice for Arsenal’s third substitution, Torreira made a few short passes and that was it.