Arsenal - Barcelona. Player ratings thread.

[True Gooner]

Almunia - 7. Would have been lower but he's the reason we're still in this tie so I can excuse his one mistake

Sagna - 5
Song - 6
Vermaelen - 4 Far too head strong and lets his inexperience show badly against bigger teams
Clichy - 7 - Superb I thought, given that he had next to no cover. His crossing was fantastic as well.


Diaby - 3
Fabregas - 3

IMO the failures of these two is what hurt us the most tonight. Playing Barcelona without a hard working midfield is ****. Fabregas shouldn't have started but kudos to his determination and spirt

Nasri - 5 Only real threat in the first half. Faded in the second
Eboue - 5 Meh
Bendtner - 6 - Would've been lower but he did play a key role in both goals.

Subs:
Walcott - 7 Fantastic. His performances in the so-called bigger games is a valuable asset.
Denilson - 7 Great! I'd start him over Diaby at the Camp Nou. His lack of power wasn;t exposed tonight.

 

[CKD39]

Almunia 7 - Ying and Yang.

Sagna 5
Gallas 5
Vermaelen 5 - caught out by 2 long balls.
Clichy 6 - Looked better in the 2nd half.

Song 8 - What a performance, this guy has balls.
Diaby 4 - This is the worst I've seen him play in ages, I'm sure he's going to be crucified on Arsenal-Mania for the rest of the week.
Cesc 5.5 - Held his nerve for the penalty

Arshavin 3 - Doesn't give a ****.
Nasri 6.5 - He does.
Bendtner 7 - He was involved in both goals.

SUBS

Eboue 6 - Drove forward well. Should have started.
Denilson 7 - Great performance in midfield to shut the mongs up, kept Messi (lol) in his pocket.
Walcott 8 - Dragged us back into the match, Capello must have creamed himself.

 

[True Gooner]

533 Successful Passes by Barca

264 Successful Passes by Arsenal

Outclassed in every department at our own turf, i'm pretty embarrassed tbh. Proud of the comeback, but disappointed with the team, because we could have done it for 90 minutes instead of the last 20 minutes.

Embarrassed? I'm not embarrassed at all, I'm the exact opposite of embarrassed. Sure, we were dominated against the best team in the world, but we came back and showed great character.

Absolutely. We had a slice of luck but it takes no small effort to turn over a 2 goal deficit against a team like Barcelona.

Disappointed with the performance but credit the spirit and the desire of the players. I know spirit and desire are often perceived to be abstract terms but tonight it was plain to see.

 

[SA Gunner]

Don't disagree with your assessment & still want him replaced next season, just think he deserves credit for keeping us in this single handedly based upon his 1st half performance.

Absolutely, Almunia deserves a lot of the credit today. Sure the lobbed goal by Ibra was a mistake on his part (and yes we have seen many of those) but the amount of saves he made today (at one stage 3 in a row if I remember correctly) far outweighs the mistakes.

 

[Humble Rex]

Almunia was absolutely brilliant bar his blunder. Without him we probably would have been 3 or 4 down after 20 minutes. Had some really good saves in the 2nd half as well. He is the reason why this tie is still alive in my book.
Song was absolutely horrible at CB. The only reason Almunia even had to think about coming out of his goal for Barca´s 1st, which of course was a mistake, was because of Song´s poor positioning. Song didn´t learn from that either, but was in the exact same horribly wrong position for Barca´s second, DESPITE Vermaelen clearly pointing and communicating with him to pick up Ibra.
Denilson was absolutely brilliant, both in possession and his positioning.
Nasri looked our only real threat for large parts of the game.
I have been critical of Theo earlier, but credit where it is due, he changed the game for us. Great impact.

Over all this was like when we play, say Stoke. Barcelona totally steamrolled us tonight until they thought we had had enough. We were gifted a way back in when they took the foot off the gas. Why they continued to push both Maxwell and Alves so high up the pitch when 2 goals up I´ll never know, but I´m glad they did.
Great to see the mental strength our boys showed by never giving up. We are still in it!

 

[Lazaq]

We really just grabbed our ankles in the first half, but at least clinched our buttcheeks in the second.

Almunia - 7 Spectacular in the first, but back to business in the second.

Clichy - 5 Completely overrun in the first half, slightly sharper in the second.
Vermaelen - 5 Did okay overall I thought.
Gallas - N/A The end of his season probably, which is a huge shame for him and and an even bigger one for the team.
Sagna - 5 Did okay.

Cesc - 6 What a fighter he is.
Diaby - 1 Shocking in every way.
Song - 5 Fought hard and did well in midfield, but at CB, he was ****. Which really is Wenger's fault.

Nasri - 7 Very good in the first half, faded a little in the second.
Bendtner - 7 Won a lot of headers and should have scored but got two assists. Two assists.
Arshavin - N/A Won't rate him due to injury, but was **** as long as he was on.

Subs:

Denilson - 7 Very good, won 50/50's and was up for it in general.
Walcott - 8 Changed the game and was the very definition of a super-sub.
Eboue - 5 Yay or nay? I'm not sure ...

 

[Bossa]

Almunia 7 - would have been 5-2 if we didnt have him.
Sagna 6 -
Gallas 6 -
Vermaelen 6 -
Clichy 6 -

Song midfield 7, defence 2 -
Diaby 2
Fabregas 6

Nasri 7 -
Arshavin 4 -
Bendtner 7 -

Denilson 8 -
Eboué 6 -
Walcott 8 -

To put things in perspective here's what I thought of Barcelona

Valdes 6
Piqué 7
Puyol 7
Maxwell 6
Alves 8

Busquets 8
Keita 7
Xavi 8

Messi 7
Pedro 7
Ibrahimovic 8

Barcelona were dominating us all over the pitch.

 

[Bossa]

Almunia 7 - would have been 5-2 if we didnt have him.
Sagna 6 -
Gallas 6 -
Vermaelen 6 -
Clichy 6 -

Song midfield 7, defence 2 -
Diaby 2
Fabregas 6

Nasri 7 -
Arshavin 4 -
Bendtner 7 -

Denilson 8 -
Eboué 6 -
Walcott 8 -

To put things in perspective here's what I thought of Barcelona

Valdes 6
Piqué 7
Puyol 7
Maxwell 6
Alves 8

Busquets 8
Keita 7
Xavi 8

Messi 7
Pedro 7
Ibrahimovic 8

Barcelona were dominating us all over the pitch.

 

[KingReyes]

Diaby was ****ter than ****. He bottled it big time. The rest were just a bit better.

 

[Humble Rex]

Those who criticize TV for Barca´s goals really need to see them again. Messi shows for the ball on both occasions and TV follows him to deny him to be able to get the ball and turn with it. Which is 100 % the correct decision on TV´s part!
In those situations Song´s ONLY responsibility is to keep track of Ibra. He failed miserably on both occasions. For their 2nd TV even clearly points to Ibra and shouts at Song to pick him up! For their 1st also, Gallas would have put Ibra offside 100 times out of 100.

 

[nazo]

Almunia 7
Sagna 5
Gallas 5
Vermaelen 5
Clichy 6

Song 5
Diaby 3
Fabregas 5

Nasri 5
Arshavin 4
Bendtner 7

Denilson 7
Eboué 5
Walcott 7

 

[Captain]

Don't be scared to give Denilson a 10 boys. He was the best player on the pitch and for 45mins put in as good of a display as any midfielder has in europe this year.

Nasri was good going forward, defensively a liability. Almunia was very good except the first goal but that happens sometimes.

 

[celestis]

name one other team who wouldn't have goten raped by barca tonight?

Probably , Inter , Chelsea and a few other sides - think you would be surprised .

 

[otfgoon]

Almunia - 7. Yeah he made an error for the first goal, but without him it would have been 5-0 by then anyway.

Sagna - 5. Really sloppy on the ball.
Gallas - 5.
Vermaelen 4. One player you wouldn't expect errors from, suffered from the lack of organisation in general from the team.
Clichy 6. Did as well as he could considering how exposed he was, was great support going forward and put in a few cracking crosses.

Song - 5. Struggled.
Diaby - 2. What a time to have one of your worst performances of the season. Choked imo.
Cesc - 5. Didn't even get a chance to show what he can do. But won a penalty and converted it, I was ****ting myself so god knows how he was feeling.

Nasri - 6. Our best player going forward, didn't help out Clichy enough.
Bendtner - 5. Not great, but two good assists.
Arshavin - 5.

Denilson - 8 (MoTM). Superb, really helped our midfield with solid passing and closing down with intelligence.
Walcott - 8. Changed the game, gave Maxwell a terrible time down the left.
Eboue - 6. Great when we went back to right back, poor before then.

 

[ricky1985]

Sagna - 6. Dreadful on the ball, rubbish in fact. Defended pretty well, but even struggled in that aspect at times.

Gallas - 3. Our defenders had it hard tonight, but he looked really rusty right from the get-go.

Vermaelen - 6. Impossible job, literally impossible. Made some super tackles.

Clichy - 7. Impossible for any player to look good in the first half, but was sublime in the second. Like a Duracell bunny!

Song - 5. Tried hard, but was part of a systematic failure in the first half when he was in midfield. Struggled with the tactical side of playing centreback.

Fabregas - 5. Ran about as hard as he could. Really heroic from that point of view, but looked woefully unfit all night though. Showed incredible bottle to smash the penalty in.

Diaby - 2. Very little positive to say about his performance. I think the occasion was too much for him. A complete liability throughout.

Arshavin - 1. Nothing positive.

Bendtner - 5. Set up Walcott brilliantly, also did well to head the ball to Cesc, but was simply not good enough in the other 88+ minutes.

Nasri - 7. Looks a top class player these days.

Subs

Eboue - 5. Good energy, but didn't look his usual confident self.

Denilson - 8. Passed well, tackled well, and was an important part of our dominance in the last 25 minutes.

Walcott - 8. Great goal, took it fantastically. So few players would have been able to take one touch on the ball and then finish, when running at absolute top speed like that. Top class. He changed the game on it's head, gave us some belief back. Maybe Wenger will start him now? Ludicrous that he hasn't been starting every game since the Burnley performance

 

[Del Boy]

Too many harsh ratings in here we just drew with the best team in the world playing without our main striker and several players with injuries.

Nobody deserves below a 5 for that second half performance IMO apart from Diaby probably who really had a terrible match.

 

[Abs]

Too many harsh ratings in here we just drew with the best team in the world playing without our main striker and several players with injuries.

Nobody deserves below a 5 for that second half performance IMO apart from Diaby probably who really had a terrible match.

Not only that, we had arsha, gallas, cesc, nasri and diaby who were just about fit enough and not nearly 100%. They were all doubt for this game.

Diaby seem to be the one that is picked on, but I take his fitness into account and he actually intercepted both balls that we scored from, so he did play his bit.

I think we were simply outworked in midfield, and barca gave us more respect than we gave them. Despite having better players than us, as soon as they lost the ball they chased it back. While we just didnt pressure them at all and when you give players that are that skillfull so much space and time on the ball, you are asking for trouble big time.

The last 20 mins saw us pressure alot more and go into our half with all the players and actually close of the space. This is the only way to play barca......chelsea and man u did this, why the hell did we have our midfield all over tha place so early in the game.

 

[Double_H]

some of the ratings here are a Joke .....Half of our players were below average while Barca were on top of there game . Yet they couldnt beat US

Almunia 9

Sagana 5
Song 6
Verma 6
Clichy 7

Denilson 9
Diaby 0
CESC 3

Bendy 7
Theo 8
Nasri 6.5

Wenger 8

 

[qs]

Don't disagree with your assessment & still want him replaced next season, just think he deserves credit for keeping us in this single handedly based upon his 1st half performance.

He would have gotten credit had he not completely negated all his good work at the start of the second half.

 

[est]

I think it's a bit harsh on Almunia to say his ****-up negated all of his good work. He still deserves credit for those 3 or 4 sublime saves in the first half.