While a look at the Arsenal result in the Premier League today, 5-1 away to West Ham who under Slaven Bilic took four points off us last season, looks great and is certainly a big boost to our chances of challenging for the EPL title, the scoreline was given a huge coat of gloss with a late flurry of goals.
You could also say that up until Alexis Sanchez doubled the lead with less than 20 minutes on the clock the Gunners had been guilty of wasting a number of chances and failing to capitalise on our control of the game and superior play. Onm another day and against a side in better form we may well have been punished according to Arsene Wenger whose post match comments reported by ESPN suggested that the boss thinks we may have dodged a bullet at the London stadium.
He said, “I am pleased with the result. You have it in your mind that you deserve to be punished if you don’t take your chances. Sometimes you get away with it like today.”
West Ham, even though they were pretty poor today, did have chances to get back into the game and you feel that we would have struggled if they did get their tails up but even when the doubts may have started after Carroll made it 3-1 they had no time to take hold as the Ox came up with his stunner.
So is Wenger right to say that Arsenal got away with it today? And if so what does that mean for the Gunners as the season goes on?
Bob.
The differences ‘with’ or ‘without’ ramsey the headless chicken. With him,win is impossible, without him,loss is impossible. Im glad he doesnt play yesterday.
Your are so blinded by hate that you forgot we scored 4 more goals once Ramsey came in.
Is good we won today but truth be told,it was obvious we are not up for this title challenge.please GOD Wenger should sign off this season and lets try another idea.
It doesn’t matter how you win as long as you come out the winners
5-1 is still 5-1 whether most of the goals came in the last 20 min or 1st 20 min
And 5-1 away is a fantastic result
Let’s keep it going
We did get away with one. Arsenal was poor but Sanchez was superb.
Yep, Sanchez played alone yesterday. And Wenger coached him.
really happy for the big win, needed it to boost our goal difference, ox played okay but misplaced way too many easy passes,walcott was anonymous had no impact what so ever, mustafi is an amazing defender wins most of his aerial duels and for his height wow, xhaka is gonna come good, and thank God ramsey didnt start
I just hope the players would keeping shooting from outside the 18 yard box. If they hesitate to shoot in our next EPL game, I would suspect Wenger scolded them why they did that against West Ham.
Oh, just shut up. Like Sanchez or Ozil take orders from anyone.
no, tbf arsenal were in cruise mode for most of the first half, and still came out 1 nil up. wIt wasnt becuase we were being challenged that we looked a little vlacking at times it was because they couldnt find the intesity against a poor west ham side
I do not believe Arsenal got away with this one. Simply because they scored 5 goals and had far more shorts on goals than West Ham. But what Arsenal did not do very well, is control the game, their overall possession statistics was 50% which is not very high against a team like West Ham which you would consider mid-table standard.
If Arsenal allow opposition teams a good foothold in the game as they seems to always do nowadays and continue to play with less than 50% possession, they will have to score at least 3 goals or more per game to win matches. Therefore, Alexis Sanchez will have to be at his prolific goal scoring best this season if Arsenal are to finish in the top four.
We looked very lack lustre for about the first 20 minutes of the second half, we were not pressing, and inviting West Ham onto us. Even the commentators said as such, and were asking why Arsenal were allowing West Ham back into game, so it’s not just my opinion. I was fearing the worst then, but Alex managed to inspire us, and I think he was trying to inspire Rambo as well, as after he knew we were safe, he was laying off all his chances to Rambo, who looked more likely to hit a passing satellite than the back of the net. I think his problem is confidence rather than match fitness… either that or he wants to join his Welsh mate at Real Madrid…
We won and that’s what matters. If anything you could also see it as a good thing that we still had enough in the tank to score many late goals.
Let’s hope this will build confidence for the time we get a real test.
We didn’t get away with 1, we got away with “5”…They got away with 1…Just sayin.
I agree we were lucky. But if all the chances in the first half hour had gone in, we would have been 5 nil up at half time. I’m undecided if it was due to bad luck or poor finishing that the ball flew wide or over, rather than in the net when it looked as if we couldn’t miss.
I’m disappointed that we still lack control in the centre of the park without Santi. I thought Coquelin’s ball retention in tight situations was excellent yesterday, but I really want to see Xhaka step up and be the fulcrum to transition to attack. I admit he wasn’t helped by Gabriel who was nervous in the first half, but much better second half going forward. Maybe Xhaka just needs more games. The Ox was good and just needs to keep improving to cut out the stupid mistakes.
All in all, a satisfactory afternoon.
I wouldn’t say we got away with 1. We took 5 of of the numerous chances we had in the game. Agreed that a more clinical side would have made us pay. However, we scored 5 and that can hardly be considered luck. Alexis was a monster all game. We need to tie him down ASAP. Xhaka was quietly effective and the ox was much improved. Wolcott was anonymous again. I think Wenger should try playing Lucas in in his position for some games. Seriously, it wouldn’t hurt to give him a chance. Ramsey and Iwobi were both given chances in in that position.