Match report – Player ratings – arteta reaction – Video
It was a night of frustration at the Emirates as Arsenal missed the chance to get back on top, losing 2-0 to West Ham.
I said before the game that we would have to be efficient in the final third: at the end of the game we had taken 30 shots and hadn’t scored a goal, so that is far from efficient. The Hammers made three attempts on goal and scored twice. In reality, it is an Arsenal story as old as time. How often does it happen that we start well and fall behind on the opposition’s first attempt?
We started pretty well, but the story of the last few weeks is that the final pass or the final action hasn’t been good enough. Cross only a little heavy; shots that lack precision; passes that are not precise or fast enough; The movement of the players in the opposing area is not clear enough. The same thing again. And then we gave away a silly goal. West Ham worked well down the left, a quick and dangerous cross caught us, Gabriel made contact to clear it but it hit Zinchenko and came back the other way.
From there, it looked like the ball was going to be thrown back for a goal kick, but Jarrod Bowen returned it and Tomas Soucek was left unmarked, due to Trossard watching the ball, for an easy shot. There was a VAR review that was inconclusive as to whether the ball had gone out or not. We can bemoan the technology if we want, and maybe it’s something the game should be able to do better nowadays, but it is what it is. If that technology existed, it could have shown that the ball went in and it was still a goal; We should have defended better.
At the other end, Bukayo Saka had a header very well saved and then hit the post, Martinelli shot wide, Jesús had an unconvincing penalty shout, but what strikes me most about that first half is our waste in the set pieces. . Obviously the plan was to put the ball near the post, and while I accept that there is a very small area in which that type of delivery can be effective, it was frustrating to see them cleared so easily. The complete failure of a free kick on the edge of the area was also appalling.
There were no changes at half-time and there were not many changes after the break either. Arsenal dominated in every attacking metric you want to extract, except the one that really matters: goals. Losing 2-0 after a corner was not ideal either. Zinchenko did not do his job blocking, allowing former striker Dinos Mavropanos to run all over the area, allowing him to outjump Gabriel and double West Ham’s lead. It was 55 minutes.
Arsenal continued to dominate and Martin Odegaard was the bright spot of the night for us. He tried and tried to make things happen, with 6 key passes in total, but if you believe and others waste, you will pay the price. There were 19 Arsenal shots between Mavropanos’ goal and the final whistle. Jesus headed low but straight at the goalkeeper, then headed in after Odegaard brilliantly found Ben White whose cross was perfect for the Brazilian. That should have been a goal in the 66th minute, long enough to find another and maybe another.
By then we had already made some changes, removing Zinchenko and Martinelli for Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah. On a night where you take 30 shots and don’t score, the discussion about our need for another forward will resurface. It is clear that there is room and a need for expansion in this area. I accept it’s difficult in January, especially given the FFP situation, but Nelson hasn’t started a Premier League game in over three years, and are we expecting him to be a game-changer? I think he says something about the depth and the bench, and neither he nor Nketiah added anything.
I also think Arteta was slow to get Trossard off the ground. Yes, he had a chance (created by Odegaard) but as much as I like what he can bring to this team, he is not the answer to the question of the left 8, unless the question is: who should we not play in the 8 left? ? I don’t think the role suits him, I don’t think he’s capable of playing it the way he should, and he was lucky to stay as long as he did. I don’t know if a longer cameo for Emile Smith Rowe would have made much difference, but I would have liked to see it anyway. I was ready for Trossard to come on at half-time.
There were calls for a penalty for a foul on Saka, and I think it should have been that way normally, but the replays showed a foul by Jesus on Ogbonna when he was going to make that challenge. I suspect that muddied the waters as verified by the VAR. Without that, I think it has a much better chance of being awarded. Odegaard kept trying as those around him offered little, and right at the death, West Ham were awarded a penalty after a foul by Declan Rice of all people. David Raya saved his blushes with a good save, but it didn’t really matter, and it’s two and zero for Rice against his former club this season; Hopefully, third time’s the charm when we go there in February.
Mikel Arteta later said:
Congratulate West Ham and praise my players, that’s what I can say. This is football. You look at what we have done in the game, how much we generated in the game and seeing the result is very disappointing, but they were better than us in both aspects. They had two shots, with the penalty three, we had thirty. I don’t know how many touches in the area, how many situations, how many open goals to score and we haven’t done it. In football you have to do better if you want to win, and today we didn’t win because of that and for the rest, the team kept trying and once again had an incredible attitude.
I agree that there was no fault in effort or application, only in execution. We had the dominance and shot count to at least not have lost this one. Beyond Odegaard, the top three weren’t good enough and, as I mentioned above, Trossard was poor, while Rice wasn’t as influential as he has been this season. Zinchenko’s insistence on setting the world’s slowest pace for our football is also a growing frustration for me. All those extra touches = more time for teams like West Ham, who are well-coached under a veteran manager like David Moyes, to reset and get organised, and therefore harder to bring down. Speed. Him. Up.
Arteta can look at the positives, the 30 shots and so on, but there are different ways to play badly. This is probably the best way to do it, if that makes sense. It’s better to be missing the final piece than to look at a puzzle that you have no idea what to do with, but it’s still bad. I think West Ham defended as well as we attacked poorly, but we didn’t help them half with that.
I think the reality of our situation is that we have to get more out of the players we have, because I don’t think there’s going to be the kind of addition in January that would raise the level to where people want it. Arteta spoke about it last night and said:
What we have are the players we have, they are the players I love the most. What we have to do is try to get better situations, and more training, put them there and increase their confidence and that’s it, because they have achieved it.
Everyone can do it, of course. We have seen it. But we have also seen this team fight for goals in a way that has cost us points. Think about games like last night, like Newcastle and Villa, where the absence of that last ball, that clinical finish, has cost us points. We need you to find your shooting boots as soon as possible, because if you don’t, there will be more frustrations like this in the future.
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Okay, I’ll leave it there for now. We’ll have an Arsecast for you a little later, so join us. Until then.
