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[Ratings & highlights] BATE 1-0 Arsenal: Lacazette & Xhaka woeful for poor Gunners

By mac14 on February 14, 2019

Alexandre Lacazette was sent off as Arsenal crashed to am embarrassing 1-0 defeat to BATE Borisov in the first leg of our last-32 Europa League tie this evening.

We wasted a few chances to break the deadlock in the first half and predictably fell behind thanks to some poor marking from a set-piece as Stanislav Dragun headed home on the stroke of half-time.

Lacazette saw a goal rightly ruled out for offside shortly after the break and we failed to muster a decent chance on goal during the final half hour of the game. To cap a dreadful night, the Frenchman was stupidly sent off for throwing an elbow late on.

Here are my ratings:

Cech 6/10 | No real chance with their goal but made a couple of smart low saves.

Koscielny 6/10 | Fairly comfortable evening for the Frenchman as Borisov offered very little.

Mustafi 6/10 | Made a smart recovery challenge in a one-on-one situation late on to prevent it being even more embarrassing.

Monreal 5.5/10 | Gave away a silly free-kick for their goal but was otherwise solid enough.

Maitland-Niles 6/10 | Was a threat early on but faded as the game went on and had no real end product. Subbed.

Guendouzi 5/10 | Worked hard again and always keen to get on the ball to make things happen but his passing was off tonight.

Xhaka 4.5/10 | What did he offer? Very little if you ask me. He looks lost when Guendouzi’s on the pitch. Subbed.

Kolasinac 6/10 | Poor attempted challenge for their opening goal but he was one of our most dangerous players going forward yet again. Set up two great chances of Mkhitaryan and Lacazette. Subbed.

Iwobi 5.5/10 | Arguably our most dangerous attacking player [which wasn’t difficult] but frustrating end product once again.

Mkhitaryan 5/10 | Missed a glorious one-on-one chance in the first half at 0-0. Huge miss and it cost us.

Lacazette 4/10 | Missed a great headed chance to open the scoring and saw a goal correctly ruled out for offside early in the second half. Capped a frustrating night by getting sent off for throwing a stray elbow late on.

Subs:

Aubameyang 5/10 | No real impact off the bench. No space against a deep BATE defence.

Torreira 5/10 | Not sure why we introduced a defensive midfielder when chasing a goal?!

Suarez 5/10 | Looked nervous as hell and was poor on the ball. Going to take time for him to adjust.

This was one of our worst performances of the season and it will go down as an embarrassing defeat. The pressure is mounting on Emery as the football is poor, we’ve made no improvements defensively and we’re struggling to even create chances against a pub team from Belarus.