West Ham 3-1 Arsenal (White og 16′, Kudus 50′, Bowen 60′; Odegaard 90+6′)
Aaron Ramsdale’s return to the Arsenal side turned into a nightmare as West Ham handed the Gunners only their second defeat of the season with a 3-1 win in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup.
Ramsdale looked to have been fouled for Ben White’s own-goal opener, Mohammed Kudus’s second was too well placed in the corner and a late Jakub Kiwior deflection rendered Jarrod Bowen’s 20-yard shot unstoppable.
But defeat for Arsenal means Ramsdale’s window of opportunity in the first team has narrowed unless he can displace David Raya, who at present is Mikel Arteta’s preferred choice in the Premier League and Champions League.
West Ham fans meanwhile were jubilant to have bounced back from three defeats in a row, recording only a third win over their London rivals in the last 33 meetings between the two sides.
Arsenal player ratings
- Aaron Ramsdale: Distinctly unsteady at first two corners, first failing to reach one that was nodded past him (although his shirt was being pulled) and then flapping at the back post. Good save to deny Bowen one-on-one in the 46th minute, but then somehow failed to stop the same player’s shot 14 minutes later. Hard to call this a performance to displace David Raya 5
- Ben White: Unlucky to bag the own goal but got to wonder whether he should have left it for his goalkeeper, who was admittedly being manhandled at the time 5
- Jakub Kiwior: Looked short of pace when put into a foot race with Bowen and then Lucas Paqueta. Not the same player as the injured Jurrien Timber, whose ability Arsenal miss as a rotational centre-back 6
- Gabriel Magalhaes: Bit weak to let Paqueta sprint free inside the first five minutes, but was not made to pay. Not the only time he was caught out though and then failed to react when Kudus beat Zinchenko to score 5
- Oleksandr Zinchenko: Clearly struggling for form and West Ham’s gameplan was built around trying to counter into the gap left by his role as a pivot in midfield. Caught out by a long ball to Mohammed Kudus for the second goal 5
- Kai Havertz: Flicked header was Arsenal’s first shot on target but Fabianski flicked it over. Other than that, continued his struggles to make a real impact on games in an Arsenal shirt lately 5
- Jorginho: Had his pocket picked more than once and in a game where Arsenal had 70 per cent possession, did not provide enough incision 6
- Fabio Vieira: Showed some deft touches in the final third and combined nicely with Odegaard for the consolation 6
- Reiss Nelson: Nice early break to the byline came to nothing and then whipped in a wicked free-kick to create Arsenal’s first chance. Faded in the second half but did look sharp in a rare start 7
- Eddie Nketiah: Had the best Gunners sight of goal in the first half, nodding a corner narrowly over. A very different outing from hat-trick heroism four days ago 6
- Leandro Trossard: Bright and direct when given the opportunity but with Havertz so peripheral and no overlapping full-back, was ploughing a lone furrow 7
Substitutes
- Declan Rice: Got a (mostly) positive reception from the West Ham faithful but they will have been delighted not to see him change the game too much 6
- Takehiro Tomiyasu: Still adapting to the Zinchenko hybrid role at left-back/central midfield 6
- Bukayo Saka: Would have hoped for a rare day off but was part of the cavalry deployed to drag Arsenal back into the game 6
- Gabriel Martinelli: Typically energetic came0 but ultimately fruitless 5
- Martin Odegaard: Added direction to a fairly aimless midfield and combined nicely with 7
The home team should have had the first sight of goal when West Ham broke the press inside their own half and Lucas Paqueta sprinted away, but his final ball to Jarrod Bowen was uncharacteristically overhit.
Instead it was Arsenal who had the first shot on target as Reiss Nelson, making only his seventh start for the Gunners since the start of last season, bent a ball onto the head of Kai Havertz, but Lukasz Fabianski was equal to the challenge of his flicked header.
Arsenal would open the scoring with a header, but it was into their own net as White could only divert Bowen’s near-post corner past Ramsdale, who felt he was fouled in his effort to punch. There is no Video Assistant Referee in the Carabao Cup before the semi-finals but had there been, Tomas Soucek’s intervention might well have seen the goal ruled out.
Perhaps if White’s header had been at the other end, the Hammers fans might not have been so generous in their applause for warming-up substitute Declan Rice, a £105m departure just a few months ago. It is a sign of how important he already is to the Gunners that Mikel Arteta chose pragmatism over sentiment and left Rice on the bench.
Instead, he had Jorginho at the base of his midfield, a less defensively-minded metronome to help unpick West Ham, who sat deep after their first goal and tried to play on the counter.
And it very nearly got them a second less than a minute after the break and Paqueta, from an identical position to the one he blew in the first half, slipped Bowen: but he was denied by Ramsdale standing tall one on one.
He could do nothing of the sort four minutes later though when Nayef Aguerd picked out Kudus with a fine long pass, bettered only by an exquisite first touch inside and second to find the corner of the net.
Bowen finally got on the scoresheet with a well-struck shot that clipped Kiwior’s thigh to leave an unfortunate Ramsdale only able to get half a hand on it.
Captain Martin Odegaard did bag a consolation goal with the last kick of the game, combining nicely with Fabio Vieira in comfortably Arsenal’s best move of the match, but it was far too little and far too late.
In truth, although he would never say it, Arteta would not have been too gutted to lose this game in a competition that his selections have made clear is bottom priority for the Gunners.
The quarter-finals will fall the week before Christmas and would have taken up one of only two free midweek slots in Arsenal’s packed fixture list, falling just before their trip to Anfield.
So if their Premier League title challenge is not to peter out as it did last year, they may look at this result as a far more positive one than the scoreline suggests.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/xcIqJZ7
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