West Ham defeat an “odd result that all Champions suffer”

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As is the way in the modern game, a defeat is followed by an overreaction on social media as the Arsenal incels creep out of their mum’s basements to spread their negativity.

In the last 24-hours, you would think Arsenal were in crisis. that the defeat to West Ham had left us 10th in the league, 17 points off top. But that is Chelsea.

So let’s start with a bit of perspective. We are 2nd in the league, 2 points off top. Yes, the West Ham defeat was frustrating, but what makes football great is that it often springs up odd results that go against the norm. Results are not as predictable as cricket, rugby or basketball.

And the West Ham result sits in the “how did that happen” category.

West Ham oddity

74% possession
30 shots
77 touches in the opposition box (the most on record for a team who failed to score)

95% of the time, a team that has the possession and dominance that we had wins the game. But this is the 5% of time that the result goes the other way.

Last season, Manchester City had 75 of the possession and 29 shots at home to Brentford. They lost. Liverpool had 74% of the possession against Luton Town. 24 shots at goal. They needed a 95th minute equaliser to snatch a point.

West ham had 3 shots on target – the two goals and the missed penalty.

It really was one of them crazy old games that makes football magic, as long as you are not the team on the end of the result. But despite all this, some have claimed the result shows Arteta has been sussed out and that “you can not win the league if you do not beat West Ham at home”.

Arteta been sussed out

Half way through this campaign, we are 2nd in the league, 2 points off top. Not bad position to be if your managers tactics have been “sussed out”.

We have lost 3 games in the league this season, each of which has seen us o nthe wrong end of a debatable refereeing decision:

Newcastle – Was the ball out? Was it a fould on Gabriel? Was Gordon offside?
Aston Villa – Was it handball for our disallowed equaliser?
West Ham – Was the ball out?

Something really needs to be done about the use of technology in incidents like this.

With the introduction of VAR, officials no longer make tight calls, prefering to leave it to the video assistant ref to confirm if it was or was not an infringment. But this failure to make a decision puts the onus on VAR to establish whether the refs call was incorrect, which is a much higher bar than establishing whether the call was correct.

The issue is the ref did not allow the goal to stand because he (or the linesman) thought the ball was in. They let it stand because VAR allows them to not make a decision. Without VAR, the flag goes up in both the West Ham and Newcastle games.

If you are going to rely on VAR to make the decisions, you need to ensure the technology is actually suitable – and it is clear in two of our defeats this season that when it comes to determining whether the ball is or is not out of play, the technology is not suitable.

Newcastle, Aston Villa and West Ham did not beat us because they had sussed out Arteta. They beat us because VAR made incorrect calls, backing up on-field refereeing cowardness.

Can’t win the league losing at home to West Ham

I find the view that you “can’t win the league losing at home to West Ham” a strange one. Most reading this blog would have watched football for enough seasons to know that one defeat at home against a lesser team rarely determines where the title ends up.

If you buy into this thinking, then you agree that you can not win the league title losing at home to Brentford – which is exactly what Manchester City did last season and they ended up winning the treble! And in each of their 4 most recent title winning seasons, they have lost at home to a lesser team:

2022/23 – Manchester City lose 2-1 at home to Brentford
2021/22 – Manchester City lose 2-0 at home to Crystal Palace
2020/21 – Manchester City lose 5-2 at home to Leicester City (they lost 4 home games this year and still won the league!)
2018/19 – Manchester City lose 3-2 at home to Crystal Palace

So that kind of blows the theory out of the water that you will not win the league if you lose at home to a lesser team. The key is how you respond and whether you can jump straight back on the horse and put a run together.

The West Ham defeat is a result that almost every Champions in the history of the English game have suffered.

Looking forward

Beat Fulham on Sunday and we go back top of the league, no matter what other results are. Not bad for a team in crisis and whose manager has been sussed out.

With Fulham (A) , Crystal Palace (H) and Nottingham Forest (A), these next 3 league games will determine if we remain in the title race.

Get 9 points from 9 and I would expect us to be top of the league (with needing to have played a game more). If we only get 1 win from 3, I will concede that we are probably not in the title race.

My last thought on this is would it really be a disaster if we finished 3rd this season, behind Manchester City and Liverpool? Liverpool and Manchester City are fantastic teams with brilliant managers who have been there and done it.

In the last half a decade, we have been financially hamstrung in comparison to Liverpool and Manchester City due to a lack of Champions League football. We are closing that gap on and off the field, and now need to stay top 4 for a few years, reap the financial rewards and continue to invest.

Yes, we might not win the league this year, but the fact we are back competing again is what we demanded during the 2010s. The only difference now is some fans have moved the goalposts from “I just want us to compete for the league” to “anything below 1st is failure.”

I will give the final thoughts of this blog to author Darren Berry:

You can lose a game of football without having to drop everyone for the next game, sell everyone, kill the manager, change the ticketing system, and set fire to the ground with everyone in it. It’s how football used to work. Grow up, get over it and move on to the next game.
— D (@HighburyAFC102) December 29, 2023

UTA!

Keenos

MATCH REPORT: Arsenal 0 – 2 West Ham

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Arsenal (0) 0 West Ham United (1) 2

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Thursday, 28th December, 2023. Kick-off time: 8.15pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Oleksandr Zinchenko; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard; Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Jakob Kiwior, Cédric Soares, (Marcus Vinicius Oliveira Alencar) Marquinhos, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Ethan Nwaneri.

Yellow Cards: Gabriel Jesus, Reiss Nelson

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 74%

Referee: Michael Oliver

Assistant Referees: Stuart Burt, Dan Cook

Fourth Official: Rob Jones

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Craig Pawson; AVAR Ian Hussin

Attendance: 60,261

Unfortunately, for tonight’s derby, Kai Havertz is suspended after accumulating five yellow cards, and Takehiro Tomiyasu, Fábio Vieira, Thomas Partey and Jurrien Timber remain unavailable due to injury. We cannot afford to slip up tonight here at the Emirates against West Ham United. If we win one of our next two matches, then we are guaranteed to be top of the Premiership on New Year’s Day, so there is all to play for.

The visitors kicked off proceedings, and right from the start it was extremely lively, with James Ward-Prowse firing a shot at our goal which went flying over the bar. That early attempt woke us up, as we applied constant pressure on the West Ham goal. We were finding lots of space in the visitors’ defence and we were playing with lots of confidence. On the thirteenth minute, the visitors scored through Tomas Soucek but there was a VAR check as it seemed to be that Jarrod Bowen kept the ball out of play; VAR checked it, and the goal stood, sadly, which was completely against the run of play. This controversial goal appeared to shock us briefly, but we managed to get back into the game pushing and hunting earnestly for that elusive equaliser. After a bad foul on Gabriel Jesus in which we were awarded a free-kick that went absolutely nowhere, we recovered the situation very well, but our dominance in possession was not leading to shots on goal. On the half hour, a Bukayo Saka header which was heading for the goal was tipped over the bar by Alphonse Areola which led to our corner that was cleared by the West Ham defence. A lovely ball by Oleksandr Zinchenko found the head of Ben White, which went a couple of feet wide of the mark, and a couple of minutes later, some superb ball work in the visitors’ penalty area found Gabriel Martinelli whose shot went wide. Declan Rice tried to spark an attack but ran straight into a wall of blue shirts, as the visitors were tightly packing their defence. With four minutes of the half remaining, a clever pass by our captain Martin Ødegaard found Bukayo Saka, whose shot hit the inside of the post and rebounded out and into play. In the five minutes of injury time, it was a case of us applying yet more pressure on the West Ham goal but with no luck whatsoever, and so we went into the half-time break unjustly 0-1 down.

We started the second half with only one thought, to start scoring goals and to win this important match. After some clever play by Gabriel Jesus, we won a corner within a couple of minutes of the restart, but a nasty clash between Leandro Trossard and Mohammed Kudus left our man in a crumpled heap on the ground; fortunately he was able to recover quickly and carry on playing. We kept passing the ball around and moving forward, and a superb twenty yard effort from Declan Rice clipped the top of the West Ham crossbar. Nine minutes after the restart we were two goals down when a corner from James Ward-Prowse found the head of ex-Gunner Konstantinos Mavropanos, whose header found the underside of the bar and went into the net. The goal certainly invigorated the visitors, who started to bring the match to us with some urgency. However, we were still on the hunt for goals, with a double substitution being made by Mikel Arteta, with Reiss Nelson and Eddie Nketiah replacing Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Martinelli. A couple of minutes later, a superb Reiss Nelson cross found the head of Gabriel Jesus, whose header went over the bar. We were finding it extremely tough to break down the visitors tonight, despite having the lion’s share of play. Mohammed Kudus fouled Gabriel Jesus, but the Eddie Nketiah free-kick was overhit and went out of play. Reiss Nelson received our first yellow card of the evening for a silly tackle, and still we kept coming forward. A long range left-footed shot by our captain went wide of the goal, and a low Declan Rice shot was blocked by the West Ham defence. Leandro Trossard was replaced by Emile Smith-Rowe with twelve minutes on the clock remaining; Bukayo Saka was brought down in the West Ham penalty area, but a VAR check denied us a penalty. and we carried on regardless, looking for that elusive goal. A shot from Emile Smith-Rowe was easily picked up by the West Ham goalie and with four minutes of the game remaining, our frustrations were there for all to see. Eddie Nketiah tried to score from an overhead kick, but it was easily saved by the goalie, as was a superb Martin Ødegaard shot, which he tipped around the post. In injury time, the visitors created a barrier across the pitch to stop us scoring, and despite more attempts by our team to score it was not to be. Declan Rice tripped Emerson in our penalty area; the penalty was given, and David Raya saved extremely well from Said Benrahma, and seconds later, referee Michael Oliver blew the whistle for full time.

All in all, it was a very disappointing evening for us in every way. How on earth does a team with seventy-four per cent possesion, thirty shots on goal (eight on target) not score, let alone win the match? How can that be? We just could not convert our dominance into goals, quite frankly, and bearing in mind that there are just six points separting the top five in the Premiership table tonight, and there is no margin for error. We have to be more ruthless in front of goal, and if that means that Mikel Arteta is going to have to get someone in the January transfer window, then so be it. However, it is still possible for us to be top of the Premiership on Sunday afternoon, if things go well against Fulham, but we certainly have to do better than we did tonight.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Fulham at Craven Cottage on Sunday, 31st December at 2.00pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon