Arsenal’s chances of winning the Premier League were severely damaged by their unexpected home loss to West Ham.

Yasir AliDecember 30, 2023

0 12 6 minutes read

West Ham's 2-0 victory means Arsenal loses out on first place.

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Arsenal’s unexpected 2-0 home loss to West Ham on Thursday prevented them from taking over first place in the Premier League. Contrary to the flow of play, Tomáš Souček gave the visitors the lead in the first half, and former advocate Konstantinos Mavropanos added to Arsenal’s misery in the second half by rising highest from a penalty spot to seal West Ham’s victory.

Said Benrahma’s penalty kick was saved by David Raya deep into stoppage time, keeping the Gunners’ score from being even worse. Still, VAR was once again a hot topic of conversation, as it has been on numerous occasions this season. Despite Arsenal’s argument that the ball had left play when Jarrod Bowen returned the ball for his teammate, the build-up to Souček’s goal was examined and it was decided there was insufficient evidence to rule it out.

When an identical event happened earlier this season and resulted in a goal for Newcastle, Mikel Arteta, the manager of Arsenal, reacted with far more composure. “They are stating that the images they have are not conclusive, but I haven’t seen it,” he said to reporters, according to Arsenal. It’s unfortunate that our current technology makes it difficult to determine whether something was in or out. Nothing can be done about it at this point; it’s done and gone.

The fact that Arteta’s team was so wasteful against West Ham may worry him much more. With seventy-four percent of the possession and thirty shots to West Ham’s six, Arsenal dominated the majority of the game. Only three of the Hammers’ six shots were on goal.

According to Opta, Arsenal had the most touches in a Premier League game by a team that did not score, totaling 77, in West Ham’s penalty area. “This is football,” declared Arteta. “You see how much we produced in the game and what we did, it’s very disappointing to see the outcome, but they outperformed us in both categories. “In football, you have to perform that better in order to win, and that’s why we didn’t win today. Nevertheless, the team persevered and displayed amazing character once more for the remaining plays.

“It’s the only thing we can do if we fail to get goals in 30 shots—we have to try 50 or 60. Against a very strong West Ham team, I can’t think of a match where you have more control, greater contact in the box, and fewer opponent situations, but today wasn’t sufficient to win the match.

Arteta stated he is content with the group of participants at his disposal, despite the fact that Arsenal’s carelessness in front of goal may once again highlight the need for a vicious striker.

“These are the players we have, and they are the players I adore the most,” Arteta remarked. “What we need to do is put them in better situations, provide them with more training, and boost their confidence; that’s all we need to do because they’ve already accomplished it.”

Liverpool, who continues to lead the Premier League, in addition to Aston Villa and also Manchester City, respectively, in the chase group, will benefit from Arsenal’s defeat. In addition to leading West Ham to sixth place in the league and just four points outside of the Champions League spots, David Moyes is still doing an outstanding job as the club’s manager. In the other Premier League game on Thursday, Brighton and Hove Albion outperformed Tottenham Hotspur 4-2 thanks to an outstanding display.

Four things became clear to us as Arsenal lost badly to West Ham 2-0 at home.

Even though Arsenal had a strong start to the match, Tomáš Souček of West Ham scored the game’s first goal against the flow of play in the thirteenth minute, sparking further controversy surrounding the use of video assistant referees (VAR).

Many believed that the ball disappeared from the play in the accumulation to the goal, but VAR ruled that the video footage was insufficient and the goal stood thanks to some appalling defending. This was because there was no clear position of the incident.

West Ham continued to dominate the majority of the half as Arsenal failed to create any clear openings and continued to be wasteful in the attacking end. Much of the same happened in the second half, and the Hammers’ lead was doubled in the 55th minute when earlier Gunner Konstantinos Mavropanos supervised home.

Arsenal did gain some momentum from this point on, but even though they had 21 shots in halftime, they were unable to score. Even worse, Declan Rice conceded a penalty towards his old team well into stoppage time. Fortunately, David Raya stopped it, preserving some semblance of honour for the home team. These four lessons can be applied to Arsenal’s loss to West Ham as we reflect on the exciting evening.

Arsenal suffers shock home loss against West Ham.

Arsenal is not willing to trade a striker.

Fans celebrated when Arsenal acquired Gabriel Jesus from Man City in 2022 for £45 million, believing that the team had at last succeeded in replacing Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Ever since, he has struggled with injuries and poor play, managing a mere fourteen goals within 40 Premier League games—hardly the stat line of a striker trying to dominate the league.

We witnessed a lot of the same towards West Ham, as the Brazilian missed several excellent opportunities that, among other things, ended the Gunners’ anticipates of a turnaround. Resolving this issue is critical if the North Londoners hope to contend for significant hardware, yet (FFP, which is) financial fair play may make it impossible to do so in January, which could be problematic for the remainder of the season.

You bet your bottom dollar on David Moyes.

Many West Ham and other club supporters have occasionally questioned when David Moyes has become the best person to guide the Irons’ forwards throughout the beginning of the current season and the conclusion of the previous one.

He was under pressure, even after the team won its first-ever European trophy in fifty-eight years, but the majority of the fan base started to rally around him. With the club finishing first in the UEFA European League group and 6th in the Premier League, any remaining doubts should have been long gone by now.

Moyes has demonstrated that he is definitely the appropriate man over West Ham, and it is impressive to watch him overcome adversity and come out on top. Under his leadership, West Ham’s potential is unbounded, but in terms of success, it appears that the sky is the limit.

Arsenal is paying for the ticketing disaster on the pitch.

In many respects, Arsenal entered a new era during the previous campaign. As they experienced greater success, the atmosphere at Emirates Stadium also improved and the team’s on-field performance increased. However, a new voting system for tickets was implemented this season with the goal of providing fans with a more equitable and straightforward method of purchasing tickets.

The truth is that the new system’s unexpected effects have caused the stadium’s atmosphere to drastically decline this season, and the planned benefits have not materialized. This is a serious issue because the team has most likely suffered as well.

Although there isn’t an easy answer to this problem, particularly in the middle of the season, the club must take action if they hope to see a resurgence of the fantastic atmosphere from the previous campaign, one that will motivate the team to compete for major awards.

It is not acceptable for technology to be inadequate.

Even though the Premier League recently signed a £6.7 billion TV deal, technology—or, in some cases, a lack of it—continues to be a major problem for the sport.

Another excellent illustration of this occurred last night when Arsenal gave up after the ball appeared to have left the play—the first time coming against Newcastle. This was Arsenal’s second such concession of the season.

Arsenal's chances of winning were severely damaged.

The goal stood because VAR determined that the camera angles they had available were inconclusive. This raises the question of why there aren’t any hawk-eye or sideline cameras to stop situations like this from happening.

Although Arsenal is not the only team that has struggled this season due to the constraints imposed by our current technology, this served as a further reminder that more work needs to be done to enhance the state of our beautiful game.