Raya 8 - Made a couple of really good saves


Timber 8 - Really impressed with his attacking play


Saliba 7.5 - Tired a bit in the second half but still stood up well to Sporting’s attacking players


Gabriel 8.5 - Enjoys defending, gave Gyokeres a tough night and got himself another set piece goal


Calafiori 6.5 - I think Arteta has his “Goldilocks” left back, though looked a bit rusty tonight so it was smart when he’s recovering from injury to take him off early I think


Rice 6.5 - Something just still not right there I think


Partey 7.5 - I think it’s underestimated just how crucial he is to our attacking play as much as Odegaard is


Odegaard 8 - Understanding between him and Saka is crucial


Saka 8 - As above, getting in behind the defence causes so much danger


Havertz 7.5 - Benefitted from the uncertainty and chaos caused by Saka, Timber and Odegaard


Martinelli 7.5 - As with Havertz, good timing to finish chance laid on for him by others



Subs:


Trossard 6.5 - Overall performance pretty low key, but showed good reactionary instincts to get his goal


Merino 6.5 - A sub rather than a starter


Zinchenko 6 - Untroubled after coming on for Calafiori


Nwaneri 7 - Would have liked to see him getting more minutes


Kiwior 6 - Struggled a bit with the physicality of the game



I don’t think we did anything special last night, by which I mean we didn’t play in a way that is different from how we usually play but we just did it very well. This was a performance of saying “this is what we are capable of”. The difference was energy, there was bundles of it….and that’s encouraging for us when we need to build momentum.

I think the way we largely kept Gyokeres quiet suggests to me that maybe we want to look elsewhere for a striker, he couldn’t handle the physicality of Gabriel and Saliba (few can of course)