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[Ratings & Goals] Arsenal 3-0 BATE: Ozil & Iwobi impress as Gunners progress

By mac14 on February 21, 2019

Arsenal booked their place in the last-16 of the Europa League thanks to a comfortable 3-0 victory over BATE Borisov tonight – making it 3-1 on aggregate.

We opened the scoring in the 4th minute when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s cross was turned in to his own net by Zakhar Volkov and Shkodran Mustafi headed home the second shortly before half time.

Any fears over a killer away goal were extinguished when Sokratis headed in the third goal midway through the second half to secure a 3-1 aggregate win and book our place in the next phase of the competition.

Here are my ratings:

Cech 6/10 | A virtual bystander for most of the match. Made one routine save.

Lichtsteiner 7/10 | Surprisingly solid night from the ageing full-back. Good clearance off the line prevented an equaliser in the first half and was always an outlet down the right.

Mustafi 7/10 | Powered home the second goal just before half time. Easy game for the German at the back.

Koscielny 6/10 | A comfortable night’s work for the Frenchman but worrying he limped off in the second half. Hopefully it’s nothing serious.

Monreal 6/10 | Saw plenty of the ball down the left but his deliveries weren’t as dangerous as we’ve seen from Kolasinac. No problems in defence.

Xhaka 7/10 | Grabbed two assists as his corners were headed home by Mustafi and Sokratis. Dictated play for much of the game.

Guendouzi 6.5/10 | Kept things simple and was full of energy as usual. But still not sure he works alongside Xhaka.

Mkhitaryan 6.5/10 | A few good moments and always keen to get on the ball but no real threat in the final third.

Ozil 7.5/10 | Good to see him back in the side and he was involved in some nice moves. Linked-up particularly well with Iwobi at times. Showed off a couple of fancy flicks and was always finding pockets of space to get on the ball. We’ve certainly missed his guile at times.

Iwobi 7.5/10 | Another impressive night’s work from Iwobi. Worked hard and went close to scoring in the second half.

Aubameyang 6.5/10 | Nice work to create the opener but spent a lot of time down the right-wing. Would have preferred to see him through the middle. Saw one chipped effort go just wide of the post.

Subs:

Sokratis 7/10 | Brave header to make it 3-0 and secure the win.

Torreira 6/10 | On to see out the final 20 minutes.

Suarez N/A | On too late.

It wasn’t a classic Arsenal performance but we did enough to see-off a poor BATE side to progress to the last-16 of the competition. Southampton at home in the league up next on Sunday…

Here are the goals from tonight’s game: