Nervy draw in Moscow sees Arsenal through- Player Ratings

GT

It wasn’t the best of performances in Moscow, but Arsenal survived a Moscow onslaught to reach the Europa League semi-finals thanks to goals from Danny Welbeck and Aaron Ramsey, here are some player ratings from Moscow.

Petr Cech- 5, Cech was arguably at fault for both of their goals, pushing it straight to an opposing player to tap in, made some other decent saves, but nearly cost Arsenal last night.

Hector Bellerin- 6, Hector struggled to get involved with the attacking play last night and spent a lot of the time isolated in the right-back position having to defend.

Shkodran Mustafi- 5, Much like his performance against Southampton, Mustafi was quite poor again, struggled to contain Ahmed Musa at times, with some clumsy clearances and wayward passes, not his best display.

Laurent Koscielny- 6, Arsenal looked all over the place at the back at times but Koscielny showed his experience as Arsenal went through.

Nacho Monreal- 6, Nacho didn’t really impact the game going forward similar to Bellerin, he was pinned back a lot of the time and couldn’t help Welbeck and co for a majority of the game.

Mohamed Elneny- 8, Elneny produced arguably the best and most important performance of his Arsenal career with a very tidy game in the middle and two fantastic assists for Danny Welbeck at a very important and Aaron Ramsey on the counter attack. Brilliant performance.

Go Mo

Jack Wilshere- 4, Jack’s poor recent form continued here with some really poor passes in important situations and running into cul-de-sacs a lot of the time, his poor night complete when injury forced him off after 69 minutes.

Aaron Ramsey- 7, On a night where Wilshere struggled, Ramsey stood up showed why he deserves a new contract more than his Arsenal counterpart, Ramsey became Arsenal’s highest ever scoring midfielder when he latched onto Mohamed Elneny’s pass to chip it over Igor Akinfeev, a neat display from the Welshman.

Mesut Özil- 5, Not Mesut’s greatest performance, but a real lack of movement and quality in the final third for large spells of the game with little space meant he was left isolated a lot in attacking positions, will need to be much better in the semis.

Danny Welbeck- 7, Again, a player who was restricted with a lack of support and space for a lot of the game, Welbeck combined sensationally with Elneny to score on 75 minutes to effectively kill the tie, brilliant goal from him.

Brilliant Goal

Alexandre Lacazette- 5, Lacazette was well below par, especially after his performance a week ago in N5, snapping at shots and struggling to get any sort of rhythm going with his teammates, we need him to be back to his best if a final place is to be grabbed.

Alex Iwobi- 4, Iwobi has struggled for much of this season and showed why he shouldn’t be near the first-team when Mesut Özil found him in acres of space, only for the Nigerian to go with his weaker foot and put it wide, so poor from him.

Calum Chambers- 6, Looked assured when he came on, Arsenal looked much less troubled when he came on and especially after Welbeck’s goal.

Man of the Match- Mohamed Elneny.

MOTM v CSKA

Arsenal didn’t need to be perfect tonight, they just needed to be gritty and grind out a result and in the end it looked easy but it could’ve been different on another night, if Arsenal are to win this competition, they will need to be much, much better.

Alex Burns

Occasional writer who follows the Arsenal home and away. Dennis is our greatest ever.