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West Ham 1-3 Arsenal: Match Review – In Cazorla we trust!

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Now that the dust has settled, I thought I would write up a match review of our last Premier League game against West Ham.

Them lot up the road got a solid and expected result against a poor Aston Villa. Chelsea saw off a poor Norwich side, whilst Manchester United got a fair result against a quiet Newcastle.

So seven games down and Arsenal find themselves in seventh position going into the international break, having played Chelsea at home, City, Liverpool and Stoke away. This can only be seen as a positive in my book.

As for Saturday, Arsenal came back against a spirited West Ham performance to come out winners after initially going one down to a good yet jammy goal from Mohamed Diame, who put in an impressive shift before being subbed in the 82nd minute. However, Diame was extremely lucky to stay on the pitch, after clumsily clattering into Mikel Arteta, having already been booked for his goal celebration.

The lead lasted only 20 minutes, when in the 41st minute, and after 303 minutes of Premier League football, Olivier Giroud broke his duck with a goal that he both started and finished. Giroud played in Lukas Podolski on the left wing, whose stinging cross was met at a full-stretch by the Frenchman to poke the ball in at the near post. Great to see the new boys beginning to form an understanding on the pitch.

In the second half, Arsenal were extremely lucky not to go 2-1 down when the ever-present ponytail totting Andy Carroll headed wide, having beaten the lackluster Vito Mannone to the ball, whilst Kevin Nolan wasted a good chance when clean through on goal.

As Arsenal began to assert their authority, with the excellent Santi Cazorla and Arteta bossing the midfield, Theo Walcott came on to give Arsenal the lead 16 minutes later. After an excellent through ball from Giroud, his first Premier League assist of the season, Walcott latched onto it and finished with aplomb, passing the ball past Jussi Jaaskelainen into the bottom corner.

Nolan then missed a golden opportunity to bring the game level, firing over from the edge of the box. This proved costly, as the excellent Cazorla capped off his performance with a superb 25 yard bomb to put the result to bed.

Overall, a solid performance against a tough away opponent, and exactly what was needed after a poor performance against Chelsea last week.

Next up is Norwich after the international break, hopefully giving Kieran Gibbs time to recover having picked up what has been described by Arsene Wenger as a ‘thigh problem’.

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4 comments

  • Mike says:

    I am hoping that we will get quite a few players back after the international break, bacary sagna, rosicky, frimpong, and wilshere and maybe woj should all be ready to fight for first team places. We are really going to have one crazy bench in a few weeks. Let’s just say we start with the same team against Norwich, our bench could be… Woj, sagna,santos,rosicky,wilshere,theo,ox.

  • duncan mccockenue says:

    Great win on Saturday despite another inept refereeing performance from the portly, useless and frankly annoying Phil Dowd. The man needs to lose some weight and stop laughing when he makes a poor decision. Good character to overcome both him and a confident Wham.

  • Julian says:

    @Mike

    Frimpong? You serious? He is rubbish mate all dench hype and no game. As far as Im concerned Szczezny, Frimpong and Sagna can stay injured. The first one has cost us countless points, Frimpong is at least a level down from Coquelin in terms of talent, and Sagna is now a reserve player because Jenkinson has finally come good, no need to go back to a right back who can’t cross!

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