Arsenal moved into the top four for the first time this season with a dynamic 2-0 victory over rivals West Ham at the Emirates on Wednesday evening. Much of the pre-match build up was centred around Pierre Emerick Aubameyang being stripped of the captaincy after his latest breach of Arteta’s non-negotiables. However, much like the win over Southampton on Saturday, his teammates did not seem to miss his presence.
The crowd were very much geared up for this one. After some mixed results of late, perhaps fans were unsure what to expect from this Arsenal side, who were up against a strong West Ham side who had already beaten Liverpool and Chelsea in the league in recent weeks. Arteta named an unchanged side for the third league match in a row for the first time as manager. Emile Smith Rowe had shaken off a knock but had to make do with a place on the bench.
The Gunners started strongly, dominating possession without creating too much in the way of clear-cut chances. West Ham seemed fairly content to sit back and let Arsenal play in front of them and attempt to draw them in and catch them on the break. Bukayo Saka looked particularly lively on the right-hand side causing West Ham to double mark him. However, it was the visitors who had the first real sight of goal. Ben White cleared a free kick from Bowen but it only fell as far as Pablo Fornals whose curling effort whistled wide.
Shortly before the break the dangerous Saka exchanged passes with Martin Ødegaard before laying the ball to Xhaka who saw his effort well blocked. The ball broke out to Tierney who took a touch to set himself before crashing the ball onto the bar. Replays showed that Fabianski did get a touch. But this encouraged Arsenal, and Saka was also involved in the next move as he fed Lacazette who swivelled and shot from the edge of the area but once again the ‘keeper met it well. Goalless at the break but an encouraging half from the home side.
The second half continued in very much the same vein. Arsenal continued to dominate, and, on 48 minutes, the pressure finally told. Gabriel played a forward ball to Lacazette who turned and sent Martinelli through with a pass that Dennis Bergkamp would’ve been proud of. If the assist was Bergkamp-esque, then the finish from Martinelli had Thierry Henry written all over it. The Brazilian took one touch before curling the ball into the far corner sending the home fans into raptures. It was just the latest indication of just how much potential this young man possesses. After a stunning first season in English football his second season was frustratingly disrupted by the serious injury, he picked up in the first lockdown, but he has forced his way into the starting line up over the past few weeks. Martinelli was constantly overlooked by Arteta in the opening weeks of the season, but he now has 2 goals and 2 assists in his last 4 starts in the Premier League.
Often this season, Arsenal have been guilty of sitting back after taking the lead instead of taking the initiative. Would this be the case today? Well, at one point it looked like Arsenal were indeed slipping back into old habits as Ødegaard, who was under no pressure, played a blind pass in a dangerous area that was seized upon by Jarrod Bowen who saw his curling effort well saved by Aaron Ramsdale. It was a big warning sign for Arsenal. Then came the biggest talking point of the match. Arsenal gained possession in the final third after some good pressing, Martinelli fed Lacazette, who was brought down in the box by Coufal. Watching it live, it appeared as though Coufal got the ball, but Anthony Taylor, who sent off Victor Moses and Matteo Kovacic respectively for Chelsea in our 2017 and 2020 FA Cup Final wins, pointed to the spot. Whilst the defender got some of the ball, much of his foot went over the ball which caused him to bring down Lacazette on the follow through. Perhaps if it were given against us, we would feel aggrieved, but we’ve certainly seen penalties go against us for far lesser offenses. After being booked very early in the game, the Czech Republic international was given his marching orders for a second yellow. Lacazette himself, stepped up to take it in the absence of Aubameyang. The Frenchman had never missed a penalty for Arsenal. Well, he has now. Fabianski guessed right and saved well from the striker. Fun fact: Arsenal have won three penalties this season and they’ve missed all three. However, thankfully, all these missed penalties have come in games we’ve gone on to win. But maybe we should find a new penalty taker anyway. Lacazette held his head in his hands. Would that miss prove costly for Arsenal?
The final twenty minutes had an unusual dynamic to them. Whilst West Ham were down to ten men, they were a goal down and the onus was partly on them to go forward to get anything out of the game. Arsenal were caught in two minds as whether to hold what they had or to use their numerical advantage to put the game beyond doubt. West Ham began to have more possession but to little effect as the likes of Antonio and Lanzini were largely nullified by a resolute and determined Arsenal defence. Emile Smith-Rowe had been brought on for Ødegaard to give Arsenal more energy in the final third. The Gunners nearly put the game beyond doubt when Tierney fed Martinelli who pulled it back for Saka, whose goal-bound effort was deflected wide by Issa Diop.
But the game was finally put beyond any doubt in the 87th minute. Tomiyasu tussled for the ball with Said Benrahma, winning the battle and allowing Saka to go on another run. He then played in the energetic Smith Rowe who cut inside on his “weaker” left foot and drilled a low effort into the bottom near corner, doubling Arsenal’s money and sealing a huge three points.
So, Arsenal’s win sees them finally break into the top 4 for the first time this season, leapfrogging the Hammers in the process. Due to Covid, both Spurs and United have games in hand (United have one, Spurs have three) but points in a bag are better than potential points in a bag. That’s two excellent home victories in the space of four days, scoring five goals, conceding none. Now we just need to sort out that pesky away form. We will have an opportunity to do that at Dirty Leeds on Saturday evening before our attentions turn to a Carabao Cup quarter final against a third division side who have triple the number of league titles as Spurs, in the shape of Sunderland.
Onwards and upwards.
What comes first? First drink, close of play or third wicket?
Cheers 21CG, fair summary. Didn’t realise we had a Karaoke Cup match to play after Leeds.
That was enjoyable……Saka was a menace all night, Martinelli has got his groove back,Laca was the battle general,Ødegaard was the conductor b4 he tired out
Partey is slowly getting fitter and hopefully reach the level we want of him… Xhaka was Xhaka,atimes I almost push my TV to urge him to speed it up, but he played his part in Tierney’s freedom down the left. Why can’t Tets see that a midfield duo o Partey and Lokonga offers more speed and dimension to the proceedings
Please let the best RB step out for recognition…..our own Samurai, Gab and White closed shop against Antonio et al, Tierney is looking like the Tierney of old….and RAMBO;it is no longer gainsaying,by whatever metrics,he is a top drawer…. will like to see comparison between him, Allison and Ederson..my boy will not come short,Habesha.
Thanks for a fine report 21CG👍
Great performance from the team.
On to Leeds we go, and then to Norwich in the PL after
Sunderland. Couple of winnable away games on last
nights form – as good a chance as any to improve our
away form anyway.
Reading talk of a two week break though or a return to
closed doors. Anyone know if that’s just paper talk or it’s
under serious consideration now?
A comprehensive report, 21CG. We saw the same game. The scoreline did not reflect our superiority until very late in the game.
I’m glad you mentioned how little impact Antonio had. Starving him of the ball was a big reason West Ham were not much of a goal threat. Props to Arteta for devising a game plan that nullified a team that can play much better than they were allowed to yesterday.
And finally a positive goal difference even if it’s only one.
I’ve seen the Spammers a couple of times this season and Antonio has been cack both times – what’s all the fuss about?
A better team might have punished the mistakes we made but a thoroughly deserved win anyway.
UTA.
A fine and very observant report 21CG. I thought this was a very enjoyable game to be at. We left very early for the game and were seated at our favourite Holloway Rd pizza and pasta joint by 5.45. By 6.15 the place was rammed – delighted to see that. We got to the ground about 7pm full of calamari, pizza and red wine, fully expecting to have to stand in line to get covid passports checked. I think they were sampling, but at a very low level. Certainly we weren’t checked and nor were any of the regulars around me. We were in our seats by 7.05. Luckily it was a warm evening.
Contrary to last Saturday, when a dodgy start combined with very wet weather to keep the crowd a little quiet, as North Bank Ned noted, as observed above the crowd last night were right up for this from minute one. In recent years we largely got the results in games against the Hammers, often against the flow of the match, but last night we were dominant, playing the game at a much more intense level that made it great to watch. My man of the match was Laca, playing with high skill as a slightly withdrawn 9. Our correspondent is spot on in observing that our first goal was strongly reminiscent of the holy duo of Bergkamp and Henry. The immediate spotting of Martinelli’s run, the perfectly weighted pass from Laca, the opening of the body and passing into the far corner by Gabi – ohmigod that was delicious wonderful football.
I loved the way that Saka pinned back the dangerous overlapping Masuoaka and then, not content with keeping him in his own half skinned him time and again. In recent years Antonio has been a real thorn in our side. Not this time. He tried it against Ben White. No dice. He tried again against Gabriel. Even fewer dice. Finally Moyes put him out wide right. Could he get past KT3? No chance. Partey was playing much better again, making ground through midfield and finding his man.
And what about Rambo? That’s 9/15 clean sheets and the last five at home. Leno isn’t getting back into this team, barring injury, anytime soon. Everyone was good, barring Xhaka who remains a liability. The way he dwelt on the ball just outside our area, getting robbed by Bowen and forcing a good save, was trademark. Not good enough.
Then with 25 minutes left we brought on a rested ESR to run at tired legs. Another great goal to kill off the game.
Kudos to Moyes for his reactions after the game, heard on the car radio. Yup, a penalty he said (he a former centre half) and made no difference to the result. That shut up the laughably anti Arsenal Dean Saunders and some over excited Hammers on the TalkShite phone in.
A great evening in North London. God I love live football and I am loving watching this exciting young Arsenal team grow together. Please Mr Government, don’t close the doors. But Arsenal please raise your COVID passport game.
M14@2: There is a ranking covering the five top European leagues derived from Opta stats. Inter Milan’s Handanović is the top-ranked keeper over the past three months with a score of 81.6. Ederson is third (80.2), Allison fifth (79.0) and Ramsdale ninth (79.1).
Over the past week, Ramsdale is ranked joint top (99.0) both for goalkeepers in the top five European leagues and for players in the Premier League in any position.
C100@6: thanks for the customarily evocative pitchside report. Glad you had such an enjoyable match to watch. I can confirm that from distance, the home crowd came through loud, clear and early.
As noted in the rankings @7, Ramsdale is in some elite glove-buttling company as one of the ten best keepers in Europe. The next two English keepers are Nick Pope, who ranks 57th, and Pickford at 161st.
Ned
England’s, England’s number one!
Excellent reports, 21cg and c100 on a very enjoyable watch from afar. Also agree with everything Mulerise said @#2 drink even though I’m not sure what that last word means. 🙂
Also, it seems our new keeper seems to like projecting himself into the game rather than hiding underneath a rock. Infectious positivity, and all to the good. 👍🏼
Leeds missing loads of players for the weekend but through injury, not COVID.
https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/leeds-united/leeds-united-squad-january-transfer-22470791
That’s a really great report 21CG .Thankyou you brought the game to life very well.A particularly good drink from C100 as well .
I watched via TV but the atmosphere and positivity shone through . There is a very excited vibe among the fans at the moment . We seem to have a very partisan and supportive group in the ground at present . I so hated the negativity in Wenger’s latter years and the final days of Emery . My big wider concern is whether we should be holding large events with audiences in the middle of a raging pandemic in the height of winter when infection is at its highest . Nobody I know who went had their Covid pass looked at . That is ridiculous.
Back to the football my sense was that most people had a good game . I noted Odegaard who seem to tire but had a great first half, Saka who tore Masuaku a new one and Martinelli who combined very well with a rejuvenated Lacazette . Partey was ok and the pick of a good defence for me was Tomayisu who I think is a terrific addition .
I think most supporters can see a sensible and achievable plan. This side needs three players at least but a few months ago it needed about eight! The direction of travel is exciting.
An excellent match report, 21CG, of an excellent performance. Sounds like a most enjoyable evening under the lights at TNHOF.
If our young guns can maintain this intensity of rapid attacks and stolid defence then we will be firmly in the scrap for fourth place this season. It’s looking like being a crowded field at the moment so we need to maintain that intensity. This was a HUGE result, not merely wresting fourth place from the Spammers (albeit we will probably sit there only temporarily) but showing that the panjandrums surrounding our erstwhile captain have had no effect on the team. Indeed, my eyes may have deceived me but Laca and Partey in particular (two senior pros) did appear to be playing in a somewhat more liberated manner than they had done earlier this season. Could a dark cloud have been removed?
Excellent additional colour, C100 @6. The somewhat dilatory approach to screening is very concerning.
It’s worth also recording that a minute’s applause for the late Ray Kennedy finally took place and was of course well respected by all within earshot of the TV microphones.
Lovely article about Gabi Martinelli.
He comes from Sao Paolo
And he plays for Arsenal
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/dec/16/gabriel-martinelli-slows-down-to-speed-up-menace-arsenal
Interesting table from C100:
21cg, well played. pretty much what i saw, too, though i lack a chris-sized bigscreen tv here in hahafornia. i love the difference between our two goals (the God/Henryesque and the unexpected 5-hole special), and that we’ve had 5 different goalscorers of our last 5 goals (2 headers, one goal-of-the-year candidate, 3 working the break, etc.).
baff/c100@15 so, assuming the core of this squad stays together (saka/20, esr/21, kt3/24, ramsdale/23, gabriel/23, white/24, tomi/23, gabigol/20, mø/22, lonkonga/22, and tavares/21 – maybe amn/24) in three years we’ll have an average age more akin to liverpool. will we have similar success?
in that group we’d need another midfielder or two (to push xhaka/mo’neny out the door), and another striker or two (once laca and auba leave), absent development of azeez and/or patino, balogun and/or john-jules. a backup to tomi (or keep chambers, unless we can get better, or one of the academy boys comes through…). pépé/partey/holding/marí could be our oldest outfield players in a year or two.
no wonder we arsenal fans are excited.
Four more PL games postponed. Could it be like the first lockdown that West Ham at home will be the last game before a shutdown?
@TTG I certainly hope not. I would be interested to see the vaccination rates at all clubs because I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were a correlation between low vaccination rates and number of positive cases. We don’t appear to have any as of now and to be honest, I can’t think of any positive cases we’ve had since Brentford which was 4 months ago now. In terms of the wider world, while the UK has seen a rise in cases, deaths are still nowhere near what they were this time last year. For that reason I think games behind closed doors are unlikely, but what may happen is a few weeks break to let things settle down and go again in mid January. What is clear though, is that there is very little room in the calendar given we have a World Cup on the horizon. But I think we can rule out a complete shutdown of the league as I think that would be rash and unnecessary given the vaccines. I believe 5 games this weekend have been postponed, as of now, our game is still going ahead so touch wood we will be playing on Saturday. Bearing in mind the prem will have to find room in the calendar to play the postponed games I just don’t think there is much room for the kind of prolonged break we saw in the first lockdown. Hopefully this is the case because as we saw last season, games behind closed doors are complete pants.
Thanks 21CG for a fine report.
And C100 for his front line recollections.
A really strong performance and a great reaction from the crowd. Like TTG I tired of the miserable, moaning atmosphere towards the end of Arsene Wenger’s reign and decided to take a break from my ST and hire it out after missing only 3 matches in 10 years at the Emirates. Last night’s atmosphere and what is beginning to look like an exciting, young new team could prove irresistible again next season. It’s great to see Arsenal youth players breaking through, together with young players from all over integrated into the system.
Mikel Arteta has had his critics, rightly at times, for the way we have too often surrendered the initiative in games , but last night we stayed on the front foot throughout and we’re still managing to press well right up to the 90th minute. Bottom after 3 games and now in a Champions League spot. It’s still early days but that is a fine achievement and our summer transfer activity looks better and better. Props to Arteta for our recovery – and no-one worked harder than he did last night.
He’s had a global pandemic and an extended lockdown to deal with – a club and a dressing room in turmoil when he arrived – a huge turnover of personnel in the first team – and a misbehaving, misfiring captain and star player to set right. All in all he walked into a nightmare, especially in his first job as a number one. He might just be getting it right.
Arteta has handled the Özil and Auba situations very well indeed, and I think he has the squad seeing what he wants to do and believing it can work. The youngsters are the driving force that have turned things around in the team but it is Arteta who put his faith in them.
Belated congratulations to the women’s team on squeaking through to the knockout stages of the Women’s CL despite losing their final group game, especially as Chelsea got bounced out with an unexpected loss to Wolfsburg.
Nicely summarised, Ollie @19. Completely agree.
Thanks, 21CG. A very fine report.
It was a great night watching Arsenal taking a well-earned three points from the Hammers. It’s such a sweet way to take the fourth spot.
Kudos to C100 as well for sharing the vibe with us. I miss it so much.
I wanted to go but I couldn’t. Bloody virus.
COYG
Arteta has confirmed what I assume we all assumed, that Auba is not available for selection against Leeds.
21CG
You make a very good point .
I think Ben White got Covid for the Chelsea game and my mate Xhaka ( who was not vaccinated ) then got it while with Switzerland but your overall contention is absolutely right and we’ve been quite lucky ( well-prepared ) since that Brentford debacle .
My bigger point – a personal view – is that mass audience events are not appropriate during a pandemic with such a high rate of infection. I know it won’t be universally shared and I fully respect different views .
In an event attended by 60,000 people who will have significant contact beyond that travelling to and from the match I would speculate that with a very transmissible variant like Omicron around 1,000 infections could occur . Look at the potential for those people to infect others – all from one football match .
It was pre-vaccination but with a less transmissible strain , the suggested level of infection at the Liverpool / Atletico game in March 2020 and the Cheltenham festival that year was massive and was tracked by the Sunday Times looking at initial mistakes made in the early days of the first ilockdown. I used to go .to Cheltenham every year but didn’t last year but heard of at least six people who contracted the virus there . I also know several double jabbed people who caught Covid at the Euros .
Bath made a very sensible suggestion that rather than out of date Covid passes evidence of a lateral flow test in the last twenty four hours should be mandatory at events with over say 50 people .
I’m not trying to be unduly provocative but that’s my view . I’m really disappointed not to be going to matches and I know Bath and Trev at least feel the same . If I start going it will soon dampen down all this positivity and raucous support in the stadium ! 😀😀
Unusual comment from Leeds Live about a selection dilemma tomorrow
‘Would I rather have a rusty Koch or one of Charlie Cresswell and Cody Drameh in the backline?’
That’s a question to ponder – anyone got any experience of a rusty cock sorry Koch ?
A very enjoyable report 21CG, of an enjoyable match. One of our best performances under Mikel. We played at a consistently high tempo, with a confidence and seriousness that augurs well for the run of games coming in the next couple of weeks.
The highlight of the match was of course the two highly cultured finishes from two young talents who if continue progressing at this rate should thrill us for years to come. Both exude remarkable authority on the ball, and back up their directness with consummate skills.
But there were a few other moments of technical brilliance as well, most memorably Tierney’s wonderful volley that drew a great save out of the ex-gunner Fabianski. More of those please Kieran. 🙂
And whoever scouted Tomiyasu should get a lot of credits. The positional intelligence, the tenacity, the solid technical abilities on both feet and in headers, the game awareness… he is playing as if he has grown up in English football. A bit more composure and skill in the attacking third from him and that right side (Saka-Tomiyasu) would be unstoppable.
TTG @ 25. We must all make our own decisions. I could not disagree more, but I know your wife is unwell following her heart attack last year and fully respect your decision. Since lockdown ended I have attended, on many occasions, football, cricket, the theatre, restaurants and pubs . I also fear that voluntary withdrawal will become semi permanent withdrawal and I’m not ready for that. Of course I do everything I can to mitigate, including taking whatever vaccinations are necessary and wearing a mask indoors. My reduction in enjoyment when I have to watch an Arsenal game on TV (as I have to this weekend, as I couldn’t get a Leeds ticket) is about 80%. I will continue to attend the majority of games and am very comfortable with that, as is my family.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>