Supersub Lacazette saves the day: Full player ratings as Arsenal beat West Ham for third straight win

In a topsy turvy performance, Arsenal beat West Ham 1-0 at the Emirates Stadium.

The Hammers dominated the game in terms of creating the best chances but finished so poorly, giving Arsenal a small window to crack through and crack they did.

Here’s how the players rated at the Emirates Stadium:

Arsenal

Bernd Leno – 8 – An impressive display from Leno, making several saves both routine and impressive to deny West Ham.

Sokratis – 6 – A reasonable performance. Hit the bar with a header.

David Luiz – 6 – Reasonably solid. Made no blatant errors but was still found wanting by a lot of West Ham’s play.

Pablo Mari – 7 – Wasn’t a disaster or anything but his Premier League bow did show him undone by West Ham’s movement a fair bit, though he always managed to recover and get the ball away though with a game-high 8 clearances.

Bukayo Saka – 5 – Saw plenty of the ball in attacking areas but could do almost nothing with it. Wasteful.

Granit Xhaka – 5 – Didn’t dominate the game as Arsenal would have liked him to and was a defensive sieve.

Dani Ceballos – 8 – Not at his creative best but still an in impressive display in the middle of the park to keep Arsenal ticking over. Made a game-high touches (121), passes (98), completed passes (86), passes in opponents half (67) and tackles (5) as well as a team-high 3 interceptions and 12 possessions gained.

Nicolas Pépé – 5 – A non-event. Was replaced by Reiss Nelson.

Mesut Ozil – 6 – An off-key showing for the German. Missed a great chance when played through by Lacazette but returned the favour with a nice header cross for the Frenchman to score.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – 6 – Some bright moments down the left but all-in-all couldn’t hurt West Ham the way you’d expect. When he did hurt West Ham it was through a loopy deflection following a long-range shot allowing Ozil to head it to Lacazette.

Eddie Nketiah – 5 – Generally a quiet performance from the youngster but he did have Arsenal’s only shot on target in the first hour of the match. Subbed off on 59 minutes.

Substitutes:

Alexandre Lacazette (for Nketiah 59′) – 8 – Came on and instantly improved Arsenal’s performance. First with his link-play, playing Ozil through on goal (only for the German to waste the chance), but then he was in the right spot to slap home Arsenal’s opening goal. His positive impact on his team-mates cannot be questioned.

Reiss Nelson (for Pépé 69′) – 6 – Had a nice shot.

Hector Bellerin (for Ozil 89′) – n/a – Came on late.

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West Ham

Lukasz Fabianski – 6 – Saved well from Nketiah, could do nothing about the goal. Unlucky to lose when he was so inactive.

Jeremy Ngakia – 6 – Handled himself quite well for the most part although got stitched up on a couple of occasions.

Issa Diop – 7 – A massive display from Diop. Dominated the Arsenal forwards every time he had to. A team-high 7 clearances shows his importance.

Angelo Ogbonna – 7 – Didn’t let Arsenal’s forwards by him. Unlucky to concede from a deflected shot.

Aaron Creswell – 5 – Average in attack, average in defence. Just, average.

Declan Rice – 7 – Stopped Arsenal’s advances through the middle of the park.

Mark Noble – 7 – A creative display from Noble who cut Arsenal open with some delicious passes. Created more chances than any other West Ham player (3).

Jarrod Bowen – 6 – Struck the ball off the post with a low shot early on. Looked to hurt the Gunners with his movement but just couldn’t find a killer pass or shot.

Pablo Fornals – 6 – Rained down shots on Bernd Leno’s goal but never looked like scoring.

Michail Antonio – 4 – Was incredibly wasteful, blowing several key chances to score. In the first-half he scandalously blew a 2-v-1 chance when his pass was behind Haller, and in the second-half he had a header from just five yards out and put it right down Bernd Leno’s throat.

Sebastien Haller – 6 – Blew a 1-v-1 with a heavy touch, allowing Leno to recover. But kept on going and made Arsenal’s life hell with his movement; couldn’t find the finishing touch, however, and ended the night goalless.

Substitutes:

Toma Soucek (for Noble 81′) – 5 – Couldn’t effect the match.

Felipe Anderson (for Fornals 87′) – n/a – Came on too late to have a positive impact.

Robert Snodgrass (for Bowen 90′) – n/a – Another late introduction with no time to do anything.