Arsenal squeeze past West Ham to prove lots of work lies ahead. by Konstantin Mitov
Happy Sunday, lovely Arsenal people. Wow, West Ham were a lot more difficult than I expected. I was really confident we’d have a happy hammer time, but instead we barely scraped with 3 points.
We never really had control of the game. We struggled to break their line and create chances. Luckily we scored 2 and that got us the win, but we desperately need more creativity in midfield.
For all the attacking talents up front, I can easily see how Auoar is our primary summer target. A little toast message showed up during the second half, and highlighted West Ham had 8 chances to 1 only in that half!
We not only need midfielders that can create chances, but also add goals to the team. We again required our strikers to do the job and it looks like they’ll have to do it for the whole season.
It was great to see Lacazette score again, and if he can raise to the 20 goal mark, that would be great. Eddie also put pressure on him with a vital goal which is great for the confidence of our strike force.
At the back though, things didn’t look great. For all the defenders we have, the 3 we put out yesterday hardly helped their cause. I must say Kolasinac was atrocious. I’m surprised Arteta even picked him. Perhaps he wanted a left footed defender on the left in the back 3, but Sead’s performance was summed up when he was released down the left and he tried to cross the ball and it went out for a goal kick. The guy can’t defend, can’t attack and he is full of mistakes. I’d be surprised if he is here at the end of the window.
The other 2 didn’t shower themselves in glory either. For me there seems to be a communication problem with Gabriel, due to his English or maybe the synergy is still missing at the back. On West Ham’s goal, we had Holding who was trying to tell Gabriel to mark Antonio, but instead he was running towards the man with the ball.
Then Holding himself realised too late that he has to mark him and a brilliant cross cut us open, because we allowed it. Rob is another Arsenal player who is too inconsistent. What closed the door on his Newcastle loan was our injury problems.
This back 3 is hardly our best and we really missed a leader like Luiz. We also missed Tierney and AMN who are vital for creating space in our play. Truthfully, I think we missed Elneny too as Ceballos despite his assist offered little to our play overall.
Nevertheless the 3 points are what matters at the end and we somehow got there. Beating these kinds of opposition will be vital as United, for example, were picked off by Palace and the race for the top 4 will be probably the most difficult it ever has been. I think these sort of performances should be used to keep a level head and realise that we need to spend more and work more on the training ground.
Liverpool added Jota and Thiago, two solid signings. And just like last season where we started with an away win followed by a difficult home one, we’ll be heading to Anfield next in the league and this will be a good reality check of where we are.
Inbetween that we go to Leicester. Not the easiest of places. It’s only the EFL cup and changes will be made, but last season we struggled with them and it’s important to show that we can overtake them and also keep the winning flow going.
In the end it was important 3 points and let’s see where that takes us.
Konstantin