West Hem fans must feel like they had found a late Christmas present last night as they watched Arsenal squander chance after chance after chance, and the referee provided them with another couple of gifts to make their day.
It has been mentioned quite a lot lately how we are missing a clinical finisher this season, and it’s no surprise when you consider the amount of chances created in our opponents box that have ended up with zero result in the end.
It’s no wonder that Mikel Arteta seemed confused by the fact that we lost the game as he rues our multitude of missed opportunities. When asked what he would like to say after that performace, he replied: “Congratulate West Ham and praise my players, that’s what I can say.
“This is football. You look what we’ve done in the game, how much we generated in the game and to see the result is very disappointing, but they were better than us in both boxes. They had two shots, with the penalty, three, we had thirty. I don’t know how many touches in the box, how many situations, how many open goals to score and we haven’t. In football you have to do that better if you want to win, and today we haven’t won because of that, and for the rest, the team kept trying and had an incredible attitude again.”
He was then asked what he thought of Arsenal’s myriad missed chances, and what could be done about it. “It’s what it is,” he said. “we have to try to generate. If we don’t score goals in thirty shots, we have to do fifty or sixty to try to score, it’s the only thing. I cannot imagine a game that you have more dominance, more touches in the box, less situations of the opponents against a really good West Ham side, but today wasn’t enough to win the game.”
When you look at the stats from the game that were totally dominated by the Gunners, including having an incredible 77 touches in West Ham’s box but still not putting the ball in the net and 74% of the possession over the 90 minutes, it seems unlikely that we ended up losing, but Arteta was philosophical about the situation: “It is, but this is football, when the team generates that much normally you are going to win games and that’s the way we have done it, because as well against Brighton we generate so much, against Liverpool as well. But we score goals in different ways and we have to make another step in that area to win the game more comfortably for sure, because today the team deserves to win the game, there’s no question about that.”
There may be no questions, but instead I think Arteta should be looking to see if he can find the answers. A more clinical striker could possibly help, don’t you think?
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Kane, Ronaldo and Lewandowski would likely miss those chances as well, because there were simply too many opponents near the opposing goal
Arteta’s 3-2-4-1 tactic forces the opposing team put most of their players in their area, because of our high-ball-possession system, passing and movement
We can’t always rely on our small attackers’ technical skills to score in such overcrowded area. Arteta should’ve seen how Klopp and Guardiola used big CFs with great physicality to make good chances
Yeah, but we had eight, repeat eight shots on target, out of a total of thirty shots altogether. I think West Ham had just three.
West Ham shot from more open spaces, whereas our attackers were more crowded by West Ham players when they made the shots
I’d agree with that statement GAI. West Ham flooded the box. However, there were still attempts made that should have troubled the keeper at least more than we did.
Jesus’ header was shocking and Trossard’s shots were inaccurate
Arteta out Wenger in .
Just shows who is the best , MA spent 100’s of millions just to Finnish top 4. He is lucky Chelsea ,Man Utd are not in form like before . There would be no chance of him finishing top 4
Oh no, don’t start something. We were lucky in ’15-’16 to finish 2nd because all the “big” clubs had off seasons right? Just gotta hear the narrative again.
The “chances” we got were either not really “chances” or poorly executed. We dont get players into the right positions to score goals. We build up too slow and as usual leave big gaps to be got at. We are very naieve in our play. Our system is flawed.
And predictable.
We need a top striker !!! Someone with the physical ability to get thro defences and score goals .
What does Arteta not understand about that ???
The difference between 90 goals a season and 70 goals is small margins, and at the moment we are not putting enough decent chances away.
Clearly 20+ strikers make a big difference for a team. Not only the 20 goals help but also the attention they require from defenders opens up space for other attackers.
I don’t think we have the money in January to buy a 80-100 million striker, but we could use one, if not in January, then hopefully during the summer.
Our results also suffer because of the absence of Timber and Tomi. I am not sure Zinchenko would start these type of games if Timber is fit, judging by Arteta starting Timber on the left despite Timber being better on the right.
I will simply say it again. If you are going against low blocks you have to be quick, deceptive or chaotic to disrupt their formation. Passing patiently and not creating spaces with runs is falling into the opponents hands. Fulham have good defenders for a low block and you bet that they will play exactly like West Ham although not blessed with the same quality of players. Is Arteta a one trick pony that he does not develop a new system?
We need a no9 but playing the way we do, at the moment there would be only slight improvement. Martinellis final ball is poor and Sakas best crosses come with his left foot, which every time has sussed.
Every team has sussed.
imo Arteta is a fine manager in most ways but imo he is wrong here. The team did NOT deserve to win the game. The hammers made their chances count and we did not. It doesn’t matter if there were 77 touches in their box or 770. He can praise the effort of his players without denying accountability for the result. He is indirectly saying that we will do the same thing going forward and assume we will get a better result.
I don’t know exactly what Gabriel Jesus is but he certainly is not a forward.
It would be interesting to know how many goal scoring opportunities he has had this season and what his conversion rate is. Three goals is terrible. I really don’t see what he offers us.
I don’t know. I think this season will be another missed chance. Perhaps this squad of players is not consistent enough
Whatever Arteta says and thinks. If we played West Ham again, playing like that. We would lose again!!!!!!
Let’s rather blame VAR and have victim mentalities! 🤣
Very weak excuses by some fans
I think either Arteta is not speaking as he honestly believes, when he talks about us having massive possession and multiple shots(and are therefore unlucky,both of which are of course true), OR he is fooling himself that mere possession and shots, WITHOUT MANY clear cut goal chances, which were NOT present in numbers, will be effective enough. The West Ham keeper mad eonly ONE real top class save late on from Odegaard and tipped over a close range header from Saka, as he would be expecteddto do. Other than that, he had nothing truly special to save at all. REALITY!
It seems to me MA is reluctant to face , at least in his public statements, THE PLAIN AND OBVIOUS TRUTH.
My opinion of what IS that truth is that we much overplay both wingers and that both are consequently JADED. That we badly lack pace in passing throughout the team and have done all season.
That we lack ANY effective enough striker. That we are tactically SO PREDICTABLE, and that MA urgently needs to vary our tactical shape.
There are other matters too, but as I WISH TO STRESS what I see as THOSE most important points, I will leave it there.