Niall McDonald hands out the marks
Fabianski: Goalkeeping expert G Neville felt positioning was poor for their 2nd – looked a perfectly placed free-kick to me, but what do I know. Otherwise pretty calm and untroubled 6
Fredericks: Slightly easier time of it against Alonso, played within his limitations 6
Diop: VERY relieved to see his conceded penalty cancelled out 6
Ogbonna: Handled the waves of Chelsea attack very professionally; lots of no nonsense stuff 7
Cresswell: Looked to be coming back to something like his old self 6
Rice: Great to see him bringing the ball forwards; a very solid pairing with Soucek 7
Soucek: Caused real problems at set pieces, covered a huge amount of ground 7
Lanzini: Looked rusty and, at times, frustrated. Played a key role in the 2nd though 6
Fornals: Not many chances to show his quality on the ball before his part in the winner, but harried, blocked and chased non-stop 8
Bowen: Very disciplined, shows real application in defence when obviously having to rein in his attacking instincts sometimes 7
Antonio: Put in an immense performance up-front on his own tonight – crucial goal and assist – credit where credit’s due 9
Subs
Wilshere: A rare sighting!! Appeared to survive injured 5
Yarmolenko: Supersub gave Chelsea a few warnings before cutting in on his left foot for the final, decisive, critical time 7
Balbuena: On in stoppage time for a (rare) win bonus No rating
Agree with you Niall on Fab, goalkeepers always offer a side to encourage players to go for a worldie and he hit it. Think Fab is getting better every day. Pulisic was alongside Antonio unplayable today so can’t blame Diop too much. I would give all our players 7’s and 8’s it was our best performance under Moyes. Agree with Moyes also we have played better than our results have showed, 22 points lost from winning positions shows we should be over 40 points already, this was the first game this season we have come from behind to win. Let’s see more of it, Newcastle and Burnley are flying so they won’t be gimmes.
I have to say that seeing the mark for Fornals made me cringe. Last two games, we had two passengers in Noble and Fornals, Moyes removed the worst of the two (Noble) for the greater good, hopefully he removes the other one on Saturday : Fornals never wins a duel, his marking is very approximate and his use of the ball abysmal. I grant him a 2 for tonight, the other subpar note being a 4 to Diop. Great to see Ogbonna back, he was brilliant, and great to have Rice, Soucek and Bowen starting to gel together in the midfield. Replace Fornals by last year’s Anderson and Lanzini by Haller and we would have a competitive team.
0lId slightly downgrade fredericks. He constantly lets attackers in on his inside then steps back and lets them walk past. I think diop looks too nervous. He hasnt been that good. Balbuena looked twice the player last time he played. Also, lanzini seemed to be playing much better and didnt go missing like usual.
I am happy to see the effort put in , that was a real team performance. We have not seen enough of that fight this year , I hope we keep that sort of effort up for the rest of the season. So nice to get a win , we so needed that well done lads. Let’s hope we can get back to back wins to relieve the stress. COYI ⚒
Please stop giving Fredericks 6’s , have a look at the game again. We are playing with 10 players. I thought Antonio, Rice, and Ogbonna were incredible. Soucek not far behind. But to give Fredericks a 6 is totally wrong. Apart from not being able to pass, cross etc, technical poor player, the most annoying thing about him is that he does not see danger, no football brain. Moyes needs to get him out of the team. I liked the players he picked last night with the exception of Fredericks. surely Johnson has to be close now. As for Wilshere did absolutely nothing and in a way was not able to keep up with the run of the chelsea player that led to the foul that they scored from. How Moyes could have put him in ahead of Anderson is an absolute joke. Wilshere is finished. And iI thought Fornals played a huge part last night, delighted with his performances in his first season in the PL.