Arsenal 2-0 Wolves Player rating and Match Reaction

Raya 8 - Couple of really good saves, taken him a while to settle in between the sticks but looks like he belongs


White 7 - Solid and Fresh after his summer off


Saliba 6.5 - Uncharacteristically sloppy


Gabriel 6.5 - A bit loose with his passing at times as well


Zinchenko 6 - No glaring errors but made sense to bring him off in favour of someone who brings defensive stability


Partey 7 - Also a bit casual at times but actually looked more at it than he did back end of last season


Rice 7.5 - Shown no real hangover from the Euros


Odegaard 7 - Started well, bit more subdued as game went on


Saka 8.5 - Man of the match, made one, scored one…like Rice…doesn’t look like a player who has hardly had any rest


Havertz 8 - Possibly could and should have scored a second but it’s good to have a forward player who can head in crosses like that


Martinelli 7 - Good pace, as I always say of him needs to stop cutting inside and take the ball to the line and in behind his full back



Subs


Timber 7.5 - Added great solidity at a time when we were under a bit of pressure


Trossard 6.5 - Didn’t really have much time to really impress


Jesus 6 - Only contribution was to give the referee lip and get himself booked :lol:



Wasn’t perfect by any means, but we did what we needed to do with two nicely taken goals. Wolves did put us under a bit of pressure in the second half which I think as much as anything stemmed from us being a bit casual in possession in our own third but in the main we mostly kept them to efforts from outside the box.

It’s the kind of result which is satisfying in that in the end it was a comfortable three points, and you know most of these players can play a lot better than they did today (not that anyone played really badly)

Saliba and Gabriel both 7.5

Partey 6, too many potentially damaging errors

Relatively comfortable game but when there’s a long period without getting a second goal there’s usually some jitters. A job well done though.

On to Villa Park. :popcorn:

Great win and all, but WWIII and stuff.

We did what was required. We do not look fully in the groove but that is to be expected at this stage in the season. What we need to do is not get carried away with results from our title rivals. Citeh have created pressure before a ball is licked because of their insane consistency over the past 5 seasons. We need to conventrate on ourselves rather than continually running scared of any dropped points going forwards...

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

Zinchenko 6 - No glaring errors but made sense to bring him off in favour of someone who brings defensive stability

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I counted four mistakes from him in the first 20 mins, maybe six 'wtf are you doing?!' moments in the time he was on the pitch.
Thought he was awful and when Timber came on it was night and day.

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Originally Posted by Mac76

Partey 6, too many potentially damaging errors

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Agreed, some of his play was sloppy, he was slow to react and some of his passing was wayward.
Honestly I think we should have sold him.

Was it as boring as usual, or are there any signs of improvement?

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Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn

Was it as boring as usual, or are there any signs of improvement?

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That’s a good question. It’s only one game so not that much evidence to go on. It was a mostly good and dominant performance, probably no more or less than last season in lots of games. Still some wastefulness in front of goal. I agree with HCZ when he said it’s not that teams try hard against us and just don’t bother against City, it’s just that City are more ruthless. We haven’t signed anyone who will help us so unless n Havertz becomes more prolific - not impossible - then that could still be an issue

Villa, Spurs and City all away to come. We’ll know a bit more after this run.