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[Player Ratings] Swansea 3-1 Arsenal: Xhaka, Cech & Mustafi woeful for Gunners

By on January 30, 2018

granit xhaka arsenal

Another shambolic display on the road saw Arsenal crash to an embarrassing 3-1 defeat to Swansea City at the Liberty Stadium this evening.

We opened the scoring against the run of play with Monreal poking home but poor defending from Xhaka allowed Swansea to level things up just over a minute later.

The second half was a sh*t show as Cech miss-kicked a clearance straight to Ayew to make it 2-1 before shocking defending from Monreal and Mustafi allowed the hosts to make it 3-1 late on.

Here are my ratings:

Cech  4/10 | Awful miss-kick gifted Swansea the vital second goal. Turning point in the game. Also easily beaten for the other two goals. Times up.

Monreal  5/10 | Another goal for Nacho but he needless put the defence under pressure by taking too long with the throw-in in the build-up to the second goal and his wild slice led to their third goal.

Koscielny  5/10 | Failed to cover the run of Clucas for the Swansea first goal. Nowhere to be seen for their third.

Mustafi  4/10 | Absolutely taken apart by Ayew for the third goal and put Cech under pressure with a strong/needless back-pass for the second.

Bellerin  5/10 | Nowhere near his best and offered little down the right side. Was out of position for their first goal.

Elneny  6/10 | Offered little protection to the back four. Clearly not the answer to our defensive midfield problems.

Xhaka  4/10 | Shocking game again. Didn’t track the run of his man, this time Clucas, yet again for the first goal. How can he keep making these basic errors? NOT good enough.

Ramsey  5/10 | Looked rusty and tired early on. Clearly not match fit yet.

Iwobi  5/10 | Has been decent by his standards in recent games but was back to his frustrating best tonight. Offered nothing.

Ozil  6/10 | Superb pass set-up Monreal for the opener but lost the ball in the build-up to the equaliser. Difficult game for Mesut as we were woeful all over the pitch.

Lacazette  5/10 | Poor display. Hold-up play was poor, looked sluggish and offered little goal threat.

Subs:

Mkhitaryan 5/10 | Couldn’t provide the spark we needed.

Giroud  5/10 | Surprised to see him come off the bench considering he’s off to Chelsea.

Watch the goals from Swansea 3-1 Arsenal

Another shocking away performance has left us eight points off the top four so it looks like our best hope of Champions League qualification might be via the Europa League.

Sadly, I have no hope that we’ll challenge for that trophy as Wenger is done as a manager and no amount of Aubameyang’s or Mkhitaryan’s are going to solve our clear issues in midfield, defence and in goal.