ARSENAL ARE SWIPED
Arsenal 0 West Ham 2
The absence of club captain Zouma (tweaked knee) and Nayef Aguerd (still ill) have pretty much guaranteed a backs to the wall perspective for this evening’s game, but that was how the recent Spurs away fixture looked at first glance. Paquetá appeared to have a hamstring issue in the pre-match kick about but is around at kick-off, thankfully.
Unlike West Ham, Arsenal managed to take something away from their visit to Liverpool. After just 47 seconds, Ward-Prowse has a shooting opportunity but is unable to restrain his swing and the ball balloons over. Throughout the first five minutes, West Ham surround each Arsenal player with two or three players of their own, cutting short the opportunity to advance into their opponent’s half.
It may be my imagination but Declan Rice looks nervous on the ball and makes few forward strides with it in the first ten minutes. West Ham’s first genuine assault on the Arsenal goal in the tenth minute is a Ward-Prowse free kick which is steered just over Raya’s crossbar.
Trossard hits an early chance over and from the clearance, West Ham regain possession and Bowen, wide on the left pulls the ball back into the path of Souček, who taps it home. Arsenal look dazed. Referee Michael Oliver, who has already awarded a goal, needs to be convinced that it’s wrong. After four minutes, they can find no clear evidence that the ball is 100% out, so the goal is given at a time of 16.04. Hurrah.
It’s Souček’s fifth PL goal of the season, and sets up a few minutes where Arsenal knock the ball around in defence as they wonder what to do. This team are top of the league, but it doesn’t feel like it. They look pretty lost from my vantage point.
Paquetá pulls up on the half hour and is replaced by Benrahma who scored here last season from the penalty spot before Arsenal hit three of their own in a miserable second half. Tonight, even without Aguerd and Zouma (from A to Z), Hammers look a lot more steady and resolute. Even when Arsenal get the ball first in the West Ham penalty area, there seems very little they can do with it.
As the half time whistle approaches, the possession stats say Arsenal have it at 75%, though the brain finds it difficult to clock any significant events to chart a potential goal. Both sides have five wins in seven at this point in the season, but Hammers are in the ascendancy tonight with Kudus and Ogbonna reigning supreme up and down the pitch, stopping Arsenal from making anything of their possession stats. There are only five additional minutes, which pass very quickly with no further incident.
The rain gathers pace over the break and soils the seats of the several thousand Arsenal fans who are still nursing Xmas hangovers in the bar behind the Upper Stand. Storm Gerrit may have its say in this part of town, but not for now, though it is raining hard. These first ten minutes of any second half have proved tricky for the Hammers to negotiate this season, but these ten pass quickly, and when they’re up, West Ham get a second.
West Ham win their first corner of the half on the right, and Ward-Prowse hits in a long, outswinging, dipping kick that Mavropanos meets superbly on the edge of the six yard box past Raya into the top corner, off the crossbar.
Utter magic, and the first time Hammers have scored two here since they won 2-0 at the Emirates on the opening day of the 2015-16 season. The filling in the sandwich between that win and this lead is eight successive defeats. So it really is big.
Try as they might, Arsenal have nothing with which to combat the confidence of this West Ham side, and even 100% possession looks like it would just be another meaningless stat. Indeed, as the game slips into injury time, Rice slides into Emerson with a mistimed tackle that sees Oliver point to the spot. Benrahma has a chance to strike lightning twice. But his firmly hit penalty is a little too close to Raya, and the Arsenal keeper paws it away to safety. Shame. The penalty save is greeted with a hollow cheer from the Arsenal fans. If there was ever one to miss for Benrahma, that was it. He had scored the last ten in a row, his previous one being in Prague in June.
In his post-match rant, Arteta fully earns his nickname the Rebel MC, where the M stands for ‘Moaning’. He whinges his way through a monosyllabic rant that would probably have a more comfortable home in a local kindergarten. Twat.
23 Alphonse Ariola, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 33 Emerson, 21 Angelo Ogbonna (captain), 19 Edson Álvarez, 15 Konstantinos Mavropanos, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 10 Lucas Paquetá, 28 Tomas Souček, 14 Mohammed Kudus, 20 Jarrod Bowen
Substitutes: 22 Saïd Benrahma
Goalscorers: Tomas Souček (13), Konstantinos Mavropanus (55)
