If any game of football this season can sum up the two different sides to Arsenal Football Club, then this is the game in a nutshell.
The first half was comfortably dominated by David Moyes’ side, who deserved to go three-nil up in the first half an hour as Mikel Arteta’s side looked lost and couldn’t keep hold of the ball, let along get into the final third and create any chances
The Hammer’s first goal came from Manchester United loanee Jesse Lingard, who struck the ball from the outside of the box to put the home side one-nil up. The touch-and-go build-up play resulted in Michail Antonio pulling the ball back for the Lingard to put the ball into the back of the net.
It was only two minutes later when Arsenal conceded the second from a very quickly taken free kick in which Jared Bowen was able to get the ball past Bernd Leno who was unable to get hold of the ball and the home side had scored twice in just 98 seconds.
West Ham continued to pile on the pressure, making it very hard for the Gunners to create and a counter-attack resulted in a wonderful ball from Vladimir Coufal into Antonio who headed it down into the net, with Tomas Soucek getting a tap-in to claim the goal.
The first half was not over as Arsenal slowly started to find their feet and they made sure to get a goal back before the break. A wonderful cross into the box from Calum Chambers allowed Alexandre Lacazette to hit the ball into the net, unfortunately with Soucek getting the final touch and the goal going down as an own goal.
Arsenal had one thing to do in the second half and that was to create chances and score goals, and that is exactly what they did.
They were able to get on top of West Ham who had controlled the first half and the Gunners effort’s were rewarded when a quickly taken free-kick resulted in substitute Nicolas Pepe crossing the ball into the box, only for defender Craig Dawson to tap it in and record the Hammer’s second own goal of the game.
Both teams were giving it their all until the final whistle, with both teams missing crucial chances, but there the last goal of the game deservedly came from Lacazette who rose to head Pepe’s cross into the back of the net and deny the home side from taking home the three points.
A six-goal thriller with plenty to talk about, so here are my three talking points from the game…
Terrible first-half performance… but Arsenal turned it around
Of course, we can’t take credit away from the players for what was an outstanding second-half performance that kept us in the game, but we can not shy away from the awful performance in the first half.
Arsenal have been known this season to not show up until towards the end of the second half and in today’s game that was proven. in the first ten minutes, Arsenal had zero passes in the final third, compared to West Ham’s 33.
the Gunners let the home side control the first half too comfortably and even in defence, the players looked scared to mark their men when West Ham came charging into the box.
When they play the right football, Arsenal like to take risks in the final third and create plenty of chances, but we didn’t see this in the first half, apart from some efforts from youngster Bukayo Saka towards the end of the half.
The players lacked passion and aggression for the first 45 minutes and as I can imagine it must have a very frustrating half for Areta on the touchline.
Arteta’s emotions certainly evolved throughout the second half as his side showed the passion and fight that they lacked in the first half and the three all scoreline tells you a lot about the club that were three-nil down as well as the club that were three-nil up.
Arsenal’s league position this season and the decrease in likelihood of getting top six has been shown through first-half performances like today’s which have cost them to lose so many points against teams in any position on the table and for a club who are capable of challenging for places in Europe, the right mentality needs to be there for 90 minutes and not 45.