Arsenal suffered a blow to their top four hopes as they lost 1-0 to West Ham United at the London Stadium earlier today.
A neat finish by Declan Rice a few minutes after the interval ensured the victory of the Hammers as Arsenal struggled to break Manuel Pellegrini’s resolute defensive unit.
Here are the Arsenal player ratings from what transpired earlier today.
Arsenal player ratings
Bernd Leno 6/10
Leno appeared nervy in making clearances, particularly in the first. However, there was nothing he could do about Rice’s goal.
Shkodran Mustafi 6.5/10
It was a rather quiet game for the German defender, but he put in an acceptable performance. He showed good composure with the ball at his feet.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos 7/10
He was solid and coped up well with the attacks created by the home side. He made one top block to deny Marko Arnautovic in the first half.
Laurent Koscielny 7/10
It was arguably his best game after his return from injury. Koscielny looked reliable at the back and is slowly making his way to his best form.
Sead Kolasinac 7/10
Kolasinac linked up well with Alex Iwobi which caused a lot of problems for Pablo Zabaleta. His work-rate was tremendous and continuously tried to get forward to create openings.
Granit Xhaka 4/10
The Swiss international seemed to be lost and bereft of ideas. Besides, it was his woeful clearing header that allowed the Hammers to score.
Matteo Guendouzi 5/10
The young midfielder won the ball a lot of times in the central midfield but gave away possession in the advanced areas. His long-range shots hardly tested Lukasz Fabianski.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles 5/10
He struggled to make his presence felt in the game as Arnautovic, Aaron Cresswell and Felipe Andersen left no stone unturned to cause him problems.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 5/10
Instead of being on the end of the opportunities, Aubameyang dropped deep quite often as there was a genuine lack of creativity from the midfielders. The idea of playing him in an unfamiliar right-wing role backfired.
Alex Iwobi 7/10
Iwobi was arguably the most potent attacker for the Gunners. He created some good deliveries and intriguingly, he drifted inside on a regular basis to create room for Kolasinac.
Alexandre Lacazette 6/10
The Frenchman looked sharp with his movement on and off the ball once again, but he couldn’t get enough goal scoring chances to leave a mark.
Substitutions
Aaron Ramsey 5/10
Ramsey Ramsey hardly made a significant impact after coming on for Mustafi with around 30 minutes left on the clock.
Lucas Torreira 6/10
He brought steel in the midfield but couldn’t really drive forward to create chances for his teammates.
Hector Bellerin 6/10
Bellerin’s introduction at the expense of Maitland-Niles on the 69th minute added more pace to the game. However, the final output was missing from the Spaniard.