[Player Ratings] Dinamo Zagreb 2-1 Arsenal: Bad Night For Giroud & Arteta

Arsenal slumped to a 2-1 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in their Champions League opener on Wednesday night with Olivier Giroud seeing red just before half time following a second yellow card.

These are my ratings from the game:

Ospina  5/10  | Not particularly at fault for either goal but didn’t look comfortable for much of the game. Was lucky when he came wandering out his area late on.

Debuchy  6/10  | Dragged well out of position for the opening goal and it proved costly, but worked hard thereafter to make amends.

Gabriel  7/10  | Another solid display. Won his aerial duels and make a couple of excellent sliding tackles.

Koscielny  5/10  | Should have done better for the second goal as he lost his man.

Gibbs  5/10  | Could also have done more for the second goal. Failed to take his chance to win back the left-back spot.

Oxlade-Chamberlain  6.5/10  | Lively early on and was one of the only players who looked dangerous going forward, but fell asleep to let his man create the first goal. Unlucky to put through his own net though.

Arteta  4/10  | Nowhere near up to speed. The game completely passed him by and his stats were worrying for a defensive midfielder. No tackles or aerial duels won during his 56 minutes on the pitch.

Cazorla  5/10  | A game to forget for the Spaniard. Usually the conductor of our play but he struggled to have any impact tonight.

Sanchez  5/10  | Another who was well below his best. He did assist for Walcott’s goal but it was a rare highlight.

Ozil  5/10  | Anonymous for much of the game and kept getting pushed off the ball.

Giroud  2/10  | Picked up two idiotic bookings to leave us a goal down and a man down. This was after he had already missed a sitter at 0-0. His confidence was already low before this game so god knows how he’ll pick himself up from this.

Subs:

Walcott 7/10 | Scored a delightful goal but it wasn’t enough.

Coquelin 6/10 | Should have started. Made a real difference when he came on.

Campbell 5/10 | Offered little going forward and was booked.

So it was certainly a night to forget for Arsenal once again in Europe and we now leave ourselves battling to even get out the group. We’re going to need to beat Olympiacos home and away and hope to get something out of Munich.