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Arsenal beat West Ham United 1-2 in a Premier League match at the London Stadium today. Rob Holding and Gabriel scored for the Gunners in the 38th and 54th minutes respectively, while Jarrod Bowen got on the scoresheet for West Ham United in the 45th minute.
The win propelled Arsenal to fourth place in the league table with 63 points from 34 matches, two points ahead of fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur. Meanwhile, West Ham United remain in seventh with 52 points from 35 matches and their aspirations to qualify for next season’s Europa League suffered a setback.
On that note, let's take a look at the three factors that stood out in today’s match
#1 West Ham United had more possession early on by playing more passes among themselves
Both teams started with 4-2-3-1 formations. Arsenal made two changes from the team that beat Manchester United 2-1 last week. Holding replaced the injured Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu came in place of Cedric Soares in Arsenal’s defense and Gabriel Martinelli started on the left flank in place of Emile Smith Rowe.
Meanwhile, for West Ham United, Kurt Zouma started in place of Craig Dawson, who was sent off in the last match. Bowen replaced Andriy Yarmolenko from the lineup that lost to Chelsea last Sunday
The match started at a brisk pace as Arsenal managed to win a corner in the very first minute. However, West Ham United succeeded in slowing down the pace of the game by playing a lot of passes among themselves. The Hammers kept playing a lot of backpasses to keep the ball inside their own half and went into attack sporadically early on.
West Ham United had more than 55% ball possession during the initial 15 minutes of the match as the Gunners adopted a cautious approach and were happy to sit back early on.
#2 Arsenal drew the first blood but West Ham United struck back soon after
Arsenal gradually grew into the game and started having more ball possession as the first half progressed. However, their fullbacks did not overlap much and preferred to stay inside their own half for the majority of the first half. Martin Odegaard operated from a deeper position and Bukayo Saka was a bit subdued in the first half-hour.
West Ham United, on the other hand, relied on Vladimir Coufal’s overlapping runs down the right flank as Pablo Fornals, who started as the right winger, kept moving to the central area more often. Coufal delivered some crosses into the Arsenal box and Said Benrahma managed to take a shot from one, which was blocked by an Arsenal defender.
Minutes later, the home side had their first shot on target, but Declan Rice’s effort could not beat Aaron Ramsdale. However, it was Arsenal who drew the first blood. Odegaard got the ball near the half-line and passed it to Eddie Nketiah, who dodged past a few opposition players and took a shot that Lukasz Fabianski had to dive to stop. Holding leapt into the air to score his first Premier League goal from the resultant corner that was taken by Saka.
The Hammers responded well and managed to earn a number of corners in a short space of time. Rice’s header from one such corner was saved acrobatically by Ramsdale.
Coufal, meanwhile, continued to make his overlaps and one of his crosses found Bowen inside the Arsenal penalty box. Bowen controlled the ball with a superb first touch and shot home from close distance. The ball took a slight deflection off Gabriel before finding the net.
#3 Arsenal scored again in the second half as the home side fizzled out after a bright start
West Ham United started the second half brightly and launched a few attacks into the opposition goal in the initial minutes. However, the Gunners managed to put their noses in front again through a goal by Gabriel. It was the Brazilian centre-back’s fourth goal of the season.
The visitors again adopted a cautious approach after the goal and relied mainly on counter-attacks as the Hammers dominated the ball-possession. However, David Moyes' side could not convert that dominance into a much-needed equalizer.
Nketiah impressed with his link-up play and work-rate once again and could have scored twice in the second half. Once his shot was saved by Fabianski and on another occasion, it missed the target by a narrow margin.
Moreover, Martinelli fell back repeatedly to his own half to curb Coufal’s overlapping runs. The West Ham United right-back could not deliver as many crosses in the second half as he did in the first.
Moyes introduced Michail Antonio and Yarmolenko in place of Lanzini and Benrahma, respectively, but they failed to make any significant impact on the game. The Hammers' second-half performance was somewhat disappointing as the Gunners registered an important win.
