ARTETA TÊTE
West Ham 0 Arsenal 6
It’s hard to remember the last time this fixture kicked off on a Saturday at 3pm. But memories shift, and from a glance at the 1988-89 season, which ended in relegation for West Ham United and the championship for Arsenal, I can recall a 1-0 victory at Highbury in an FA Cup third round replay, the only goal of the game scored by Leroy Rosenior. Fast forward three years to 1991-92, and it was another relegation season for the Hammers, Arsenal finishing 4th, and another 1-0 victory at Highbury, this time in front of just 33,000 fans. The single goal was scored by Mike Small, a striker whose power and industry was often mirrored in his early years by Michail Antonio. Small, however, proved a one season wonder, and his subsequent loan spells at Wolves and Charlton Athletic yielded just one goal in five appearances.
Victories at Arsenal in the late twentieth century were marginally more regular than those at home. The twenty-first century not so much. Bobby Zamora’s goal in April 2007 was the only score in a 1-0 victory, the first ever by an away side at the Emirates. That victory completed the double over Arsenal in what was to become the 2006-07 ‘Great Escape’ season, following the November 2006 1-0 home victory, courtesy of an 88th minute winner from Marlon Harewood. You have to go back to the 1964-65 season for West Han’s previous league double over Arsenal. Not a great stat if you’re a Hammer.
Declan Rice’s first West Ham goal came in his last appearance as a teenager, at London Stadium and proved another solitary winner on 12th January 2019. The only other win between that and the Zamora strike at the Emirates came in a 2-0 victory at the Emirates on the opening day of the 2015-16 season.
Notwithstanding all of those facts, Hammers now face an Arsenal side who last weekend beat Liverpool, and they themselves have not beaten anyone since they last played Arsenal at the Emirates in December.
This afternoon the final goal of six in this painful-to-watch game is scored by Declan Rice, like just over five years ago. It is also a shot from the edge of the area that gives the goalkeeper no chance. Unlike most of the others in this afternoon’s game, though, it comes from open play.
For the record, this is West Ham’s worst home defeat since Boxing Day 1963, over sixty years ago, when they lost 2-8 to Blackburn Rovers. In the team that day was Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst. The following season that same team did the double over Arsenal under just one manager. That man was Ron Greenwood.
Did Ron get the tactics wrong that day, or was it just that second helping of Christmas Pud that was the reason for that particular Upton Park disaster? A Greenwood-led West Ham also lost 0-3 to Mansfield Town of the fourth tier in the FA Cup 5th round almost 55 years ago, back on Wednesday 26th February 1969, in a side that fielded Moore, Hurst and Peters.
23 Alphonse Areola, 2 Ben Johnson, 4 Kurt Zouma (captain), 5 Vladimir Coufal, 33 Emerson, 19 Edson Álvarez, 27 Nayef Aguerd, 7 James Ward-Prowse, 28 Tomas Souček, 20 Jarrod Bowen 14 Mohammed Kudus
Substitutes: 1 Lucasz Fabianski, 11 Kalvin Phillips, 17 Maxwel Cornet
