UP THE ARMS, DOWNING TOOLS
West Ham 3 Arsenal 3
All games of football – apart from some of those that are abandoned – are games of two halves. So this was, unsurprisingly, a game of two halves.
Arsenal, like Tottenham, are two of the so-called ‘Big Six,’ even though they are 10th and 8th respectively. Though Arsenal have already lost 11 of their 28 games, the Sky Bet bookies make them favourites to win this game. That’s what I’ve never understood. This slavish focus of the press on teams to achieve, even when they don’t. Naturally if you are an Arsenal or Tottenham fan, you won’t mind that, but if you support the NOT Big Six team West Ham (who are actually fifth at the time of writing) you will be rightfully pissed off. And majorly so.
And it’s not just the fact that almost at the end of EFFING MARCH commentators up and down the country are still pronouncing Tomas Souček ‘Sir Cheque’ or ‘Sour Czech.’ Nope. It’s not even the fact that whenever Sky focus on West Ham games against the ‘Top Six’ teams, and West Ham have the audacity to beat them, they then spend an hour after the game concentrating on the ‘fall’ of whichever manager and his team has just lost to them. It’s what I see as a feeble and lazy predisposition to ignore events that play outside their narrative. Of course we also see that model of ‘news’ with elements of the right wing press (which is why the Tories can only win or lose elections, and Labour never actually win them even when they do).
This game does everything it possibly can to revise and reframe the narrative, but eventually plays victim to it. Arsenal are not having a great season, it must be said, but they still have a monstrously talented and expensive, though ultimately underachieving, squad. Can they raise their game today?
Fornals fails a fitness test, so Benrahma starts for the Hammers, and they have only lost one of the nine games when he has started. It’s a decent stat that offers a perspective of optimism for the game, even with the disappointment of losing Fornals.
Bowen, Antonio and the returning Lingard represent the goal scoring prowess on show from the home team and, a little after fifteen minutes, two of them have scored. Lingard hits the first from the edge of the area, set up by Antonio, and Bowen hits the second ninety seconds later before the bubbles have even settled, after a swiftly taken free kick from Lingard.
Definitely not in the narrative is a third, prodded home by Souček, from Antonio’s goal bound header.
Arsenal are coming more and more into the game, however, so when Lacazette hits the ball past Fabianski, it’s not a complete surprise. The only surprise is that the replay shows his shot was going wide until it clipped Souček’s outstretched knee cap, deflecting it past Fabianski. So another own goal. Saka almost hits a second for Arsenal two minutes later, but shoots straight at Fabianski. Moyes’ half time talk will now be a more wary one, even with the two goal advantage.
Arsenal begin the second half as they ended the first, on the attack and dominating possession, and Diop is forced to clear Lacazette’s chip off the line after it has beaten Fabianski. Arsenal press. West Ham resist. Martin Ødegaard is the North Londoner’s talisman this afternoon, charming goal opportunities out of almost every one of his clever runs.
After 55 minutes Antonio is fouled, but before referee Jonathon Moss can blow the whistle, Lingard takes the ball through with just him and Benrahma against Mari and Luiz, two on two, but instead of playing the advantage, gained because he was behind the play, Moss then blows late and compounds his earlier error. He shrugs his shoulders – these things happen, guys – then fashions a deliberately exaggerated stroll across to give Moyes a ticking off after the Hammer’s boss has all too audibly yelled justifiable complaints. The free kick West Ham eventually get comes to nothing.
West Ham hold firm for a further ten minutes before Bowen is brought down by Mari. Moss has missed it and allows Arsenal to take the unexpected free-kick quickly, because this time he’s up with the play. Hammers’ players freeze in the centre of the pitch and Ødegaard feeds the impressive Chambers on the right. His pacy cross is turned into his own net by Craig Dawson steaming in, completing a suicidal brace over two games after his goal at Old Trafford.
To score one own goal in a game may be regarded as a misfortune, to score two looks like carelessness. We can’t be sure that Oscar Wilde was a Gunners’ fan, but they were formed nine years before he published those words, so don’t imagine the literary genius to have been more seduced by the red and white stripes of Sunderland (who beat Hearts 5-3 in the 1895 Football World Championship final). Wilde could just have easily been a Gooner. He was actually a goner, five years later, but we’ll leave that for another time.
So, I hear you croak, now West Ham have scored five goals but are somehow only 3-2 ahead, isn’t it about time they hit the woodwork? They’ve already done it eighteen times this season. Fear ye not, intrepid football fans, they are not about to let you down. But before that inevitable moment, another opportunity falls to Antonio after Bowen has seen his shot brilliantly blocked by Tierney, and as the goal gapes before him, Antonio’s effort clips the buttocks of Tierney as he slides into view, and the ball bounces wide. Bum steer, if I’ve ever seen one.
Despite Arsenal’s possession, Hammers finally prove beater blockers, and the two clear chances created are both straight at Fabianski, an Arsenal keeper himself from some seven years past.
Mark Noble comes on for Bowen for the last fifteen minutes to see Hammers over the line. A minute later and Benrahma’s brilliant run and cross sets up a chance for Antonio, but the striker’s contact on the fierce cross bounces back into play off the post.
Nineteen woodwork strikes this season. Ni-ni-ni-ni-Nineteen.
Five minutes later and Arsenal are level, Ødegaard finding Pépé, who crosses brilliantly on his wrong foot for Lacazette to head powerfully past Fabianski.
How has this happened? It’s Arsenal, your honour. Good old Arsenal. We’re proud to say that name. While we sing this song, you’ll win the game. Jimmy Hill wrote those dismal appropriated lyrics, but it’s probably even worse to reflect on the fact that Arsenal let him.
There’s still time in the game for Declan Rice to sustain a run the length of the pitch, not unlike the one that led to him hitting the underside of the bar away at Leicester City. This one covers almost eighty yards and takes him past Pépé, Ødegaard, Partey and Rowe, his fierce goalbound shot finally beaten away by Leno to the feet of the recovering Pépé, who scuffs it away to safety. And that’s about it, other than another effort from Pépé, which is straight at Fabianski. A fair result, but beyond frustrating for the few witnessing homesters.
It’s worth remembering that what kicked West Ham’s season into life back last October was the unexpected brilliance of the three goal comeback in the last eight minutes of the game against Spurs. I’m hoping with fury that becoming victims of a similar fate at home against The Arse isn’t the event that ends it.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 23 Issa Diop, 15 Craig Dawson, 41 Declan Rice (c), 9 Saïd Benrahma, 11 Jesse Lingard, 28 Tomáš Souček, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 30 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 16 Mark Noble, 24 Ryan Fredericks
Scorers: 11 Jesse Lingard, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 28 Tomáš Souček
