Manuel Almunia - 7 - I thought he did pretty well. Not at fault for the goal, and produced a couple of good saves to keep us in it at 1-0.
Bacary Sagna - 7 - Didn’t do too much wrong, positionally he was very good, although perhaps didn’t get forward as much as he could have in the first half.
William Gallas - 5 - He had a pretty bad game, along with Senderos. At fault for the goal and although he made a couple of good tackles positionally he wasn’t anywhere near his best.
Phillippe Senderos - 5 - Pretty much the same as Gallas, although more consistent and din’t make too many crucial tackles as Gallas did. Still, like Gallas, was a long way off his best.
Gael Clichy - 6 - Hasn’t been too great for a little while now. You kind of forget how much we rely on his consistency of performance until he goes through a bad patch of form.
Alex Hleb - 5 - Dallied on the ball too much, and generally seemed like the Hleb of last season. Needs to play at a higher tempo.
Cesc Fabregas - 5 - Like Hleb, we rely on him to dictate a tempo to our play, and unfortunately he chose slow when we should have been sharp and quick.
Mathieu Flamini - 6 - Worked hard but lacked quality in possession and the driving runs weren’t there as much as normal.
Abou Diaby - 3 - Shocking. Had all the skills at the start of game, but by 20 minutes in he was giving the ball away left right and centre, offering little or nothing to our attack and not defending as he should do either.
Theo Walcott - 7 - Our best player for two weeks in a row arguably? Certainly our sharpest player out there on Saturday.
Emmanuel Adebayor - 5 - Pretty poor. Should definitely have been making the Villa defence work more than he did.
Substitutes:
Nicklas Bendtner - 6.5 - Added presence and scored a goal. You can’t really argue with his contribution too much as he got us out of a whole when we needed just that to happen.
Denilson - 6 - Wasn’t on for very long, did alright with the few touches he got.
Gilberto - 6 - Same as Denilson
