GOALS: Arsenal: Huth o.g. (86)
MAN OF THE MATCH: It was hard to find the best player, but Mesut Ozil and Granit Xhaka were dominant for most of the match. Ozil looked the most likely to pry the game open.
THE WEAK LINK: Alexis Sanchez. He had a terrible match where he gave the ball away repeatedly.
THE REFEREE: Mike Jones 7. Jones was decent for the most part, but his carding of Alexis was a little harsh and due to a misunderstanding, according to Wenger. Fuchs should have been carded for what he did. He also could’ve sent Benalouane off when he put his studs into Giroud’s back.
THE MANAGER: 5. Wenger had to rotate personnel because of Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final, but he needed a tall striker, a target, and our offence suffered accordingly. Substitutions should’ve been made earlier. Arsenal were lucky to win in a game they looked lifeless.
OVERALL TEAM RATING: 4. Arsenal looked stale and generated few direct opportunities on the goal. Arsenal’s defence looked solid for the most part, but they will need to be better this coming weekend against Spurs.
VERDICT: Arsenal largely controlled the match, but lacked end product and needed a lucky deflection to win the match. Too often they were unable to find a way through the Leicester defence, too often they were reduced to passing the ball from one side to the other or crossing the ball into a box with few Arsenal players capable of scoring.
PLAYER RATINGS:
Cech 7: He made one great save off Mahrez in the first half. Other than that he had little to do. He did make one poor clearance that caused some problems, but luckily Gabriel cleaned up the mess.
Bellerin 6: He was effective on the wing, but he lacked a tall target in the box. Some of his crosses went nowhere, but he won several corners and made a couple of decent runs into the box.
Gabriel 7: Mahrez danced around him too easily at one point, but he was a safe pair of hands at the back.
Koscielny 7: He was steady at the back, strong in the air, and kept Vardy quiet. He did tweak his knee near the end.
Monreal 7: He played in the back three for most of the game and he looked solid at the back. For the second game in a row Monreal was involved in the goals, this time his strike hit Huth and deflected into the goal.
Gibbs 7: He owned the left wing and was able to break through a number of times, but there was nobody to attack his crosses.
Coquelin 6: Was generally effective at breaking up Leicester attacks, but he was unable to add some offensive pizzazz.
Xhaka 7: He was solid defensively and he was effective at moving the ball around the field. Was yellow carded.
Ozil 7: He looked the most likely to break the game open, but he couldn’t pry the defence apart.
Walcott 5: Largely ineffective match for Theo. He did manage a shot in the first half but Schmeichel had the near post covered.
Sanchez 5: He had one massive strike before halftime that hit the crossbar, otherwise Alexis had a game to forget. Too often he made poor passes, gave the ball away and tried to force things too often.
Substitutes:
Welbeck 6: Wasn’t able to make much of an impact.
Giroud n/a: On for too little time to make an impact.
Ramsey n/a: Never made an impact on the match.