da bet esporte： In the end, Arsenal got the job done, but it wasn’t anywhere near plain sailing for Mikel Arteta’s side on Thursday night.
da supremo： With the whole Mesut Ozil saga dominating the pre-match headlines, it would have been no surprise to see the Gunners go into the Europa League clash against Rapid Vienna with their attentions elsewhere.
And so it proved to be. A howler from Bernd Leno – who looked nervy all game with his distribution – saw the Austrian side take the lead, before goals from David Luiz and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got their European journey off to a winning start.
But whilst Leno may be the man to come in for some criticism after gifting a goal to the opposition with a poor pass from inside the penalty area, it’s Sead Kolasinac who boss Arteta should really be ruthless with.
The Bosnian looked all set to leave the Emirates in the summer transfer window, but a deal to join Bundesliga giants Bayer Leverkusen collapsed in the final few days, with the left-back ending up staying.
On the basis of Thursday night’s performance, the Gunners really should have done everything to have gotten him out the door at the Emirates.
Playing once again on the left-hand side of a back-three, Kolasinac was tasked with dovetailing with Bukayo Saka, but was often caught in no-man’s land between giving him support and staying further back for protection.
More often than not, the duo just got in each other’s way, and it was so revealing that when Hector Bellerin came on in the second-half, most of Arsenal’s attacks came down the right-hand side – the winning goal of course coming via some neat build-up play involving the Spaniard.
As per Sofascore, Kolasinac lost possession 16 times over the course of the game, whilst he made just one interception and no tackles whatsoever.
Whenever he had the ball at his feet, the Bosnian looked uncomfortable, and often took too many touches to either play it down the line or come back inside with it.
When January comes around, Arteta and Arsenal must show the door to him.