West Ham have long since been regarded as the fourth biggest side in the capital behind Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs. They have never won a league title and have never won much of anything else either.
Yet you get the sense that their fans have a perception that they are much bigger than they actually are. Throughout David Moyes’ tenure, a period in which they qualified for European football three years on the trot after not being there for decades and won a trophy to boot, large sections of the West Ham fanbase dismissed Moyes claiming his brand of football was dull and he wasn’t to the standard of a self-proclaimed “big club” like West Ham.
They may have had a point with the first one, after all, the football was dull. But when have you ever seen West Ham play attractive football for a sustained period of time? Not for a long time is probably the answer. And who cares about the brand of football if it brings about success, something West Ham have been starved off for the majority of their meagre existence. You’re West Ham lads, not Barcelona. I could never understand it.
But despite West Ham being remarkably mediocre they have caused us problems on many occasions, not least in the last few seasons despite our very obvious superiority.
So, can Arsenal avenge West Ham for the last two damaging defeats they’ve inflicted upon our title bids in each of the last two seasons?
A shock 2-0 defeat in N5 just after Christmas in 2023 proved to be one of the games that cost us the title in 2023/24 and the 1-0 defeat in February all but ended our title aspirations there and then. In fact, West Ham are responsible for half of our four defeats in our last 42 Premier League games at the Emirates.
These two results were made even more baffling given our last two results at The London Stadium: a 6-0 demolition back in February 2024 and the 5-2 humbling last November in which all five of our goals came inside the first half.
We are up 11-2 on aggregate over in East London but 0-3 down on our own patch over the last two seasons. Football is a funny old game as the saying goes.
On paper tomorrow’s match ought to be routine. We have enjoyed a positive start to the season, and we will leapfrog Liverpool at the top for a few hours at least with a win. Meanwhile, West ham have amassed a mere 4 points with just one win and they have sacked Graham Potter.
But we all know what West Ham have inflicted on us recently plus we may well have to contend with the famed “new manager bounce.” Nuno Espirito Santo boasts a top CV (apart from his stint at Spurs of course) and has a reputation for setting his sides up to be very difficult to break down and often dangerous on the counter.
But it is only a few weeks since we had to face a team with the famous NMB and that was of course against Nuno’s successor, the hapless Ange Postecoglou as we trounced his Nottingham Forest side 3-0. A repeat of that against The Hammers would be very welcome indeed.
In terms of team news, we will be made to sweat over the fitness of Gabriel who limped off with a muscle problem in the latter stages of the win over Olympiacos. Piero Hincapie remains on the sidelines until after the international break.
As to West Ham, they will be without Thomas Soucek who is serving his suspension for his straight red card in the defeat to Spurs a few weeks ago.
Despite our recent struggles against West Ham, I would still back us to win comfortably. We have a much stronger squad than we did last year, and we now have the players to be able to win these types of games with relative ease even after playing in midweek.
We made six changes against Olympiacos from the last gasp win at Newcastle and we were still able to field a formidable side. Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze all only played a small part of Wednesday’s 2-0 win over Olympiacos, and you would fully expect all three to start on Saturday.
And even if Gabriel is unfit for the game he will be replaced by Mosquera who has been largely excellent since his summer move from Valencia.
We now have undoubtedly the strongest squad in the Premier League, and perhaps even the most complete squad in Europe. Playing three games a week is no longer much of an issue for us now. That isn’t necessarily the case for our rivals.
We should certainly have enough to beat West Ham, who let’s face it, aren’t very good new manager bounce or not.
3-0 to The Arsenal. You heard it here first. COYG!!
Cheers 21CG. One of these games I have no idea what to expect, taking into account recent history rather than current respective strengths.
We should win 3-0 or something indeed, but I fear the worst, so will settle for a nervy 2-1.
From 1-0 down of course, and not as late a winner as last week. Please.
Nice work 21 CG , I agree with your points about the strength of our squad and the perversity of our results against the Hammers .
If I can dive back into history West Ham were a very different club . They had a superb production line of silky footballers and during the sixties they reached their zenith . They won their first FA Cup in 1964, the Cup Winners Cup at Wembley the following year and as C100 reminded us in the last report they provided three players for the England 1966 World Cup winning squad including the captain and the scorers of all four goals . There was a statue of them ( and Ray Wilson) outside Upton Park and youngsters going to their first game would pose doing the ‘ Irons ‘ gesture in front of it . They were also the most violent fans in London , possibly England but they had a real tradition of pass and move football.
That was a long time ago and I will be there tomorrow hoping to crush them and go top !
As the 2023-34 season drew to a close, many were of the opinion that our home defat to Villa, coupled with Sonny Boy pushing an easy chance past the post as Neighbours’ fans Poznaned ecstatically, were the stumbling blocks that doomed Arsenal’s title challenge.
As you’ve pointed out, 21CG, the unexpected home defeat by West Ham, (coupled with a similarly unexpected away defeat a Fulham after the Gunners had been gifted a one goal start) was probably more impactful on the outcome of that title race.
Therefore it is with some trepidation that I’ll take my seat at the feet of Kent’s finest in the knowledge that tomorrow’s West Ham visit will be followed immediately in the League by a trip to Fulham. Beware the ghost of bogies past!
Wins by the team in red and white in both of these games may well serve as a very promising weathervane of sunny skies ahead. Let’s make it happen, Arsenal. Please.
As always, Ollie tables words of wisdom with which I’m inclined to agree. A win of any colour, size or complexion will do very nicely thanks.
Thanks 21CG !
TTG has already more or less made the points that occurred to me. West Ham fans’ presumption of grandeur does indeed hark right back to the 60s. That side won the Cup Winners Cup with one Harry Redknapp on the wing and a side that included Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst who made up much of the spine of Alf Ramsey’s World Cup winning England team in 1966. Their style – the West Ham way – was engendered in the club by manager Ron Greenwood and was continued when he retired by David Lyall. Those glory days are now long gone and they have become a financial mess of a club still with porn king David Sullivan at the helm.
Some of us have some very nasty memories of West Ham fans, both at Highbury and Upton Park, involving violence which at its worst resulted in the death of an Arsenal fan in N5. Esso may or may not wish to elaborate.
Whoever plays tomorrow should be very capable of a result to set the recent record straight – a 4-0 win for me, new manager bounce or not.
Nice preview 21CG, putting the Spammers in their correct current context notwithstanding TTG’s observations on times past and Trev’s memories of their off-field threat.
I would love us to put them to the sword with a statement victory and a hat-trick for our Swedish Bull but, as noted by Ollie, it is likely to be a more difficult game than we would like and BtM reminds us that this is the kind of game that we have in the past failed to win and as a result we failed to win the title.
Fast start, please. Dominate the game. Take our early chances. Win the game by half time. Keep the back door closed and manage the game out. Simples!
COYG
A very enjoyable read. I love your previews and reports 21st CG.
John Lyall wasn’t it rather than David?
Let’s face it, the recent home games aside where we got caught cold we normally beat these Essex wide boys and the west Ham way or football academy is about as old as the hills.
Nuno Spirito Santo may be a better bet than Harry Potter just, but he can only work with the tools he has in front of him. And these West Ham tools are rusty. A comfortable home with for me.
SP – absolutely it was John Lyall. I had a tennis player called David Lyall who invaded the memory banks 🙃
A fine report 21CG. Yes, the current iteration of the spammers is a poor reflection of years gone past. They were indeed a club noted for their football style some 40-60 yrs ago but I suspect most of their supporters today never witnessed that – they were more likely to have witnessed the thuggery of their notorious gangs that followed the team in the latter part of the last century. I actually went along to their European Cup Winners triumph at Wembley in 1965 ( they won 2-0 against that footballing powerhouse 1860 Munich, yes who !!, both goals scored by Alan Sealy, yes who !! ). One of my pal’s unusually supported them at that time but he soon reverted to following his home club at Highbury and has remained faithful ever since.
West Ham has long been a graveyard club for many of our finest as they saw out the embers their careers – Liam Brady, Ian Wright, Nigel Winterburn & Jack Wilshere readily spring to mind.
I feel confident we will get a good result against them, the hammers are not really a good team, apart from Jarrod Bowen , and I don’t think Nuno has enough of the new managers bounce to change that with their current squad depth along mentality that Mikel has now installed in the team. Our winning run to continue with 3-0 to the good guys.
COYRRR
I’ll happily take your 3-0, 21CG, but we may well have to work hard to get there. I suspect Nuno will have them tightened up at the back. There is undoubtedly plenty of slack for him to work with. In their six games in the league so far this season, they have conceded 14 goals, although their xGA is only 8.3. That’s rank bad luck or rank bad defending.
At the other end of the pitch, the numbers are better: six goals scored against an xG of 6.1. Yet that still means that, over 90 mins, they are scoring one goal and conceding 2.33; even on the xG numbers, they would be scoring 1.02 goals and conceding 1.38 goals. Not a winning ratio.
Nuno will be doing well just to get them from really bad to bad. Nonethess, Ollie’s 2-1 isn’t a bad shout given what the numbers say.
Half WHU’s goals have come from Bowen. Expect Arteta to see to it that he is starved of service.
Nice preview 21CG, thank you!
The spirit-boosting, self-affirming, late late win away at Newcastle I think would manifest itself as considerable boost to the team’s performance. And I think visitors would find it a rather forgettable experience, chasing shadows for ninety minutes.
A nearly blind man living all alone up with the clouds of Sils Maria had remarked that one must yet have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. He knew a thing or two about who or what we are.
The chaos he meant is not antithetical to order, but a state of being that exists on a different plane than the ordinary dichotomies. Watching us nowadays it almost always feels to me that this team is on the verge of something extraordinary, a kind of phase transition of football matter to something beyond our ordinary preoccupations with numbers and trinkets.
Raya
Timber – Saliba – Mosquera – Calafiori
Zubimendi – Rice
Saka – Ødegaard – Eze
Gyökeres
4-1
Come on Arsenal!
Thanks 21CG, an enjoyably upbeat preview!
It’s been frustrating to lose to this current Wham shower
and I hope we give them a good tonking today,
Dr F’s side looks about right to me though I think Gabriel
is ok and will start. Curious to see if MA will start Ode / Eze
Raya
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori
Rice, Odegaard, Eze
Saka, Trossard, Gyokeres
Bench: Arrizabalaga, White, Lewis-Skelly, Mosquera, Norgaard, Zubimendi, Merino, Nwaneri, Martinelli.
200th Premier League appearance for our Star Boy.
Some names to stir some memories on this list.
All out attack from the starting line up.
Rice at DM, Leo at LM maybe?
Then Ode behind
Saka Gyo Eze
I guess it will be fairly fluid regardless
The injury gods are just bullying Ode now.
Just hope it’s not too bad
Saka still our penalty taker and 2-0
to the Arsenal
A comfortable, if not stirring win. Nuno has made WHU better. There is a decent mid-table team there if he can get a tune out of his squad. But even then, they will still be at least a plateau below our standard. We kept all their danger men quiet today.
The undernoticed highlight had to be Eze preventing a sliced and skied clearance by Zubimendi from going into touch with immaculate control right on the line, followed by a simple pass back, two touches that completely belied the skill involved.
Now, if only Chelsea can get something out of their game against the Scousers.
Ha, yes, that piece of skill from Eze was very nice, Ned.
I thought it would be tough to score against West Nuno, but I expected them to at least have a couple of chances. As it is, I can’t even remember them threatening once.
On the train back, bumped into our own BtM and Predictathon friend (sorry was too stressed to catch the name) while on the way to Angel (debating whether to take a bus) due to no late train tonight. Which was nice.
Ollie@19: The Aristocrat, perhaps?
If I’d tried that piece of Eze skill, I would probably have Bobby Zamora-ed it into Row Z — assuming I’d managed to get my foot to the ball, that is.
I do believe we are top of the league!
Ned @20 : Yes, that was him!
Not counting Leeds home, we’re 13 points to 8 better off comparing results of teams played this season and last.
It’s good to be top of the league again.
>>>>>>>