Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang supposedly had a score to settle with Mikel Arteta on Sunday, but he was locked out of the game by an imposing Arsenal defence.

A lot of the pre-match talk about Arsenal’s trip to Stamford Bridge this weekend centred on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, set to play against his former club for Graham Potter’s Chelsea.

Reports in the media suggested Aubameyang felt he had a score to settle up against his former manager Mikel Arteta, and the striker did look fired up in the early kick-off on Sunday. But his impact on the result was ultimately minimal.

Playing 64 minutes of the London derby, Aubameyang had eight touches, completed three passes, and won zero duels. Contrast that with his opposite number Gabriel Jesus, who made 62 touches, completed 18 passes, and won 11 duels.

Arsenal’s defence dominated proceedings, with Gabriel Magalhaes making two interceptions, one tackle, four clearances, and scoring the winner, whilst William Saliba made three interceptions, two tackles, and three clearances.

Saliba won the Man of the Match award, and along with Ben White and Oleksandr Zinchenko they limited Chelsea to just five shots in the entire match. Of those five shots, three were blocked at source.

The only impact Aubameyang managed to have in the match was when he picked up a booking for a poor late challenge on White.

The Arsenal fans didn’t take kindly to the foul, chanting “Mikel Arteta, he thinks that you’re sh*t” at Aubameyang immediately after Michael Oliver showed the striker a yellow card.

In fairness, that was the only time the fans chanted against Aubameyang, and it was clearly brought on out of a feeling of wanting to defend their player from dangerous challenges like that.

But after Aubameyang’s comments about Arteta, with the striker claiming his former manager can’t deal with big characters, he brought that kind of reaction on himself.