Arsenal have suffered three consecutive defeats for the first time since 2010.
The Gunners were beaten at home 2-1 by Swansea City on Wednesday night.
Having taken the lead through Joel Campbell, they managed to throw away three points against the Swans, who had rested multiple star men with this weekend’s relegation six-pointer against Norwich City in mind!
Former Tottenham Hotspur winger Wayne Routledge equalised for the visitors on 32 minutes, before captain Ashley Williams completed the turnaround after half time.
To make matters worse, Petr Cech injured himself in the final moments. The former Chelsea goalkeeper pulled up hurt in the act of going up for a corner kick.
The result leaves Arsenal six points behind Premier League leaders Leicester City and three below Spurs going into Saturday’s North London Derby.
Gunners fans are not very happy.
Arsenal fans right now. #WengerOut #ARSSWA https://t.co/MRUtI7N4oq
— CaughtOffside (@caughtoffside) March 2, 2016
Many Gooners will have wanted to switch off and forget about football after Wednesday’s nightmare.
Unfortunately for Ash Attlee, writer for All Arsenal, it is his job to analyse the horror he had just witnessed.
Check out Ash’s Arsenal player ratings (scores out of 10) below…
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GK) Petr Cech – 6.0
Perhaps should have done better for Swansea’s second goal, but all in all he can’t really be blamed for the defeat.
RB) Hector Bellerin – 5.5
More of the same from Bellerin, who regularly gets forward into great positions but is then wasteful with the ball. In the first half he made so many superb runs and got beyond the defence, but his crosses and cut-backs were really poor and rarely found their target. The one time he really did put a great ball in though, Olivier Giroud totally fluffed his lines and failed to get any purchase on the his shot.
LB) Nacho Monreal – 5.5
Solid and reliable for the most part, but didn’t offer enough going forward at times. He was regularly pushing up the field, but merely provided an out-ball more often than not.
CB) Gabriel Paulista – 5.0
The Brazilian is really struggling at the moment, and looks to be suffering a crisis of confidence – as many Arsenal players seem to be. He’s constantly making rash decisions and swinging wildly at balls, and looks a bit of a liability.
CB) Per Mertesacker – 5.5
Arguably partially at fault for the first goal, although there was also a lot of bad luck involved. He gave Giroud a great chance to score with a lovely knock down, but defensively he was nothing more than average.
DM) Francis Coquelin – 6.5
One of our more reliable players, putting in a number of decent tackles to break up play. As we were dominating possession most of the time though, he didn’t always have a huge role to play.
CM) Aaron Ramsey – 5.5
Hard working as ever, but totally out of form. His passing and decision making are all wrong at the moment, and we are badly missing Santi Cazorla.
CAM) Mesut Özil – 6.5
One of the best Arsenal players on the pitch, but that’s not really saying much. There wasn’t enough movement ahead of him to make use of his passing ability, and he wasn’t able to prove the difference.
RAM) Joel Campbell – 7.5
A couple of mistakes in his game as usual, but he was arguably the best player on the pitch for large parts of the game. It was a real shock t see him substituted first.
Substitute: Danny Welbeck – 6.0
Bang average when he came on as a substitute, really not offering anything. Joel Campbell really should have stayed on.
LAM) Alexis Sanchez – 5.5
He may have got the assist for our goal, but overall the Chilean was poor yet again. He was unlucky not to score with a free-kick and a deflected shot, but he’s really struggling for form at the moment and it’s very, very worrying.
Substitute: Theo Walcott – 5.5
Anonymous once again, with his only real contributions being a poor cross and a tame header straight at Lukasz Fabianski.
ST) Olivier Giroud – 4.5
At first the Frenchman seemed a little unlucky, getting into great positions but not doing enough with the chances that came his way. But as the game wore on and he missed more and more opportunities and wasted chances to play his teammates in, you could see just how poorly he was performing.