Arsenal player ratings v Watford – Leno saves us from another awayday embarrassment

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A win is a win and so that is good, right? Well, yes, but also a resounding no, why? because we were rank poor again and my player ratings will reflect that, I will not gloss over the failings just because we won, a win that came about because of a goalkeeping howler and because our opponents went down to ten men, not that we took full advantage.

As the game went on, I honestly thought we would concede, the Hornets looked far more likely to find the back of the net than what we did and I tell you now, we play like that against Napoli and a two-goal lead will not be enough.

Anyway, here are my ratings

Leno – 8

He made some crucial saves, without him we may well have conceded and to a large extent, he saved us from embarrassing ourselves.

Mustafi – 7

Actually thought he had a good game, he stood strong under pressure and thankfully made no gross errors.

Mavropanos – 5

Bloody useless, he made me nervous and if Andre Gray was a better play we would have been in trouble.

Koscielny – 7

Solid performance when you consider how much defending he had to do, showed toughness against a very physical team.

Monreal – 6

Was reliable, never made any big mistakes but was not inspiring with his passes either, an average performance really.

Torreira – 5

I expected more and the truth is he never delivered in midfield, we should have completely controlled the game when Deeney got sent off but we did not and for large parts of the game got overrun in the centre and a part of that was down to a poor game from Torreira.

Xhaka – 5

A poor game and just like Torreira I expected more, with his talent and vision he should have taken the midfield by the scruff of its neck, he never did.

Mkhitaryan – 4

Woeful, his finishing and passing were terrible, he never looked like he wanted to tackle and just looked damn lazy throughout.

Ramsey – 5

Not a vintage performance, in fact, he was poor, he had a great chance in this game to tear into Watford and he just went missing.

Iwobi – 6

At least he tried but what did he actually do with the ball, nothing, he looked like a busy bee with no end product.

Aubameyang – 7

He made the goal with his persistence, he did his job and for large parts of the game was provided with appalling service, cannot criticise him too much.

Ozil – 6

Became anonymous when he was brought on, he did show some of his usual sublime touches and on a couple of times released the pressure on us but other than that did nothing outstanding in a game perfectly set up for him.

Guendouzi – 6

Was busy and involved when he came on, did nothing wrong really, no mad tackles, no real bad passes and fought for the ball, his usual average game.

Maitland-Niles – 7

Made a very crucial tackle and when he came on he did make a difference, he brought a far better shape to the team and it is a shame he was not on from the start.

So, as you can see, the ratings are not great and I am critical and I will not apologise for that, not when you are playing a team down to ten men for almost 80 minutes and their most influential player at that was the one red carded, we should have done far better than scrape through and goal difference could be a factor come to the end of the season, we had a chance here to really lay down a marker and we failed.

Yes, we won, I am happy about that, but I saw nothing last night to alleviate my worries about our away form, absolutely nothing.

1 thought on “Arsenal player ratings v Watford – Leno saves us from another awayday embarrassment

  1. Agree with all said, they were absolutely awful thought we were going to lose after every thing in our favour, should have made the most of it for our goal average.
    What a joke, we were
    Left hanging on ,it was pathetic, where was lacazette and michitarian was a Palling

    Could not believe it

    D

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