Match rating of those who played for us last night....
Fabianski-------------------6 Didn't do anything particularly bad or extraordinarily good. Was left exposed for the 1st goal by his own defender and whilst he would have done well to react quicker to spare Jenkinson's blushes, you can't blame him too much..
Koscielny:------------------8 Confident in his defending. Anticipated and intercepted chelsea passes at will. Was instrumental in preventing an embarrasing 3rd goal
Vermaelen:-----------------6 Still loves to bomb forward at the slightest chance and leave us exposed to counter attacks. Lucky not to see Red late on in the game after foul on demba ba. He was strong on the tackle mostly and looked fresh but Mertasacker will always be numero uno to partner Kos in my opinion
Monreal:-------------------7 Nacho played perhaps his best game for us since he joined last January. Brilliant positional play, overlapped sensibly and came close to drawing us level in the first half after a fine effort flew just wide. Assured and impressive all round looked like a true spanish international.
Jenkinson:------------------4 I like this dude. But in all honesty, last night he shocked me and i'm sure a lot of his fans with an utterly abject performance. He simply allowed match day jitters get the better of him. He looked like he was a rookie on his debut. Poor decision making, Slow reactions, poor crossing (an area where he usually is very good normally) in fact he had a nightmare. Sagna is usually not given enough credit for his consistency. Carl showed us tonight why he is nowhere ready to fill Sagna's boot.
Wilshere:--------------------6 Did what Wilshere does and that is look to force the play, drive the team forward and play quick one-two's. Sadly this night our Attack was as bad as i'v seen it ever. Wilshere is at his best when a good striker can hold up play whilst he looks to play co-midfeilders in. He did his fair share of Tackling and tracking back but found it hard to influence the game more. It was strange seeing him around the box telling Jenkinson what to do on the play leading to chelseas 1st goal. May have unwittingly contributed to Carl's confusion ultimately
Ramsey:----------------------7 looked our most confident midfeilder but was saddled with a much deeper defensive role than usual in the absence of Flamini and Arteta so couldn't really function in the manner we've seen him do previously this season. He was however always a threat on the few occasions he ventured forward and was a ready outlet for good shots from outside of the Chelsea box. Had to be subbed bearing Saturday in mind,we'll be needing him more then obviously.
Rosicky:-----------------------5 Not his best night. Wasn't his usually influential self and found Mikel and Essien too physical to cope with. Thomas tends to thrive when he has Theo on his right to play in behind the defender. But in Miyaichi, he was devoid of any outlet of such nature. I was disappointed he didn't try to shoot more when well positioned but there you go.
Carzola:------------------------6 Good movement, intelligent passing but you get the feeling he is still coming to full fitness after his long injury layoff. Was at the center of everything good we managed to do last night but as a unit, Arsenal didn't attack with purpose so his efforts were not able to yield anything concrete.
Miyaichi: -----------------------3 I know we all want him to do well because he is a great kid. But lets face it, he looks out of depth at Arsenal. Either send him out on a season loan or sell him off outright. Joel Campbell who's been out on loan can't have done any worse than Ryo last night. (Speaking of which , i wonder why we can't get him a work permit yet?) Ryo looked lost on the pitch and i can't remember any telling contribution he made apart from receiving one good long ball from Bendtner and nearly finding a way through past Mark Scwhartzer. Frustrating night for him and all who watched him struggle.
Bendtner: -----------------------3 A huge reason why we where so poor in attack. Looked completely uninterested. You would expect the fact that since he hadn't played a lot thus far this season he' would be up for it. How wrong. He stunk the place out with his poor movement, he was slow as hell and showed poor hold up play. I was made to see the immense work Giroud does in our attack just by watching this guy last night. Horrible outing. He really needs to contribute more so he can impress some club out there to take a chance on him, because on the basis of this performance i think Arsene is done with him.
Subs:
Giroud---------------6 Came in after the chelsea 2nd goal and quickly showed what we had been missing all night long. Better hold up play and attempts at goal! Its easy to say we should have started him but we needed to rest him, he has played quite a lot plus Wenger had to give Bendtner some playing time.
Ozil: -----------------5 Couldn't do much to change the game as chelsea by the time he came in had already closed up shop.
Park:------------------N\A Was introduced to the game late on & i honestly don't remember him even getting a touch on the ball till the final whistle.
* sigh* And so one trophy outlet slams shut in our faces. Look, as much as it never feels good to lose and especially to a team like Chelsea we have to accept they were the better side last night, simple as that. Their larger squad depth and quality was what made the difference at the end of the day. Maybe we didn't help ourselves by gifting them a first goal but there you go. In my preview, i mentioned i wouldn't lose sleep if we lost and i still feel the same way. Matter of fact out of those four big fixtures, if i had to choose a game to lose
it would have been this one. So lets pick up ourselves and march on. I just feel though that the only worry tonight was our inability to switch up our style when it seemed obvious we weren't penetrating. Again i can't stress enough the sooner we get our natural wingers back the better. Our lack of width is starting to be a problem. Theo and Podolski will be Welcome returnees in no small measure. Right gotta run, talk again soon.
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