Don't Miss

[Player Ratings] West Ham 0-0 Arsenal: Sanchez & Iwobi woeful for toothless Gunners

By mac14 on December 13, 2017

Arsenal produced another toothless away performance as we were held to a 0-0 draw by West Ham at the London Stadium tonight.

The stats will tell you we had 68% possession and 22 shots but in truth we were extremely poor and barely threatened Adrian’s goal. Honestly, I struggle to think of more than a handful of decent chances with most of our ‘shots’ blocked or well wide of goal.

Here are my ratings:

Cech 5/10 | Kept punching crosses instead of catching and got away with a poor punch in the second half.

Bellerin 5/10 | Offered nothing in the first half. Got forward more after the break but looked short of confidence.

Koscielny 6/10 | A decent game until the end when his suicidal square pass in defence almost cost a goal.

Monreal 5/10 | He’s NOT a centre-back in a back four. Positionally suspect on several occasions.

Maitland-Niles 7/10 | A surprise starter at left-back – which isn’t his natural position – and he was our best player in the first half.

Xhaka 6/10 | Every pass was sideways and kept having pot-shots from distance in the first half that didn’t threaten. Offering nothing at the minute.

Wilshere 7/10 | Showed some lovely touches and lost his man a few times with the drop of a shoulder but blazed a great chance over in the 70th minute.

Iwobi 5/10 | Whacked the outside of the post but was largely useless. I have no idea why he started tonight when we had so many better options available.

Ozil 6/10 | Saw plenty of the ball but a lack of movement in front of him limited his influence.

Sanchez 5/10 | Forced a decent save from a free-kick but little else. Nowhere near the player we’ve been used to seeing as he’s become so predictable. Doesn’t deserve to start right now.

Giroud 5/10 | Put himself about but offered no serious threat at goal. His lack of movement restricted our play up front. Should be an impact sub.

Subs:

Welbeck 5/10 | Touch was awful at times but he should have started ahead of Iwobi.

Lacazette N/A | Only given ten minutes to have an impact.

So another poor away performance that was painful to watch at times. Wenger tried to change things up with a new formation and line-up but it made little difference as we were pedestrian and lacked creativity.

I thought we looked unbalanced with four of our front six being left-footed [Xhaka, Wilshere, Ozil, Giroud] as this restricted the passing angles at times and slowed down our attacks with players constantly having to check back on to their left foot.

We’re now seventh in the table but the good news is we’re only one point off fourth. Next up is Newcastle at the Emirates on Saturday….