Result: West Ham 3-1 Arsenal
Competition: Carabao Cup
Date: 1 November 2023
Venue: London Stadium
Arsenal: Ramsdale, White, Kiwior, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Jorginho, Havertz, Vieira, Nelson, Trossard, Nketiah
Subs: Hein, Cedric, Tomiyasu, Saliba, Rice, Elneny, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli
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West Ham dumped Arsenal out of the Carabao Cup with a 3-1 win at London Stadium
Ben White’s early own goal set the tone for a bad night for the Gunners who were further punished before the hour mark by Mohammed Kudus and Jarod Bowen.
While substitute Martin Odegaard reduced the arrears with the final kick of the game, it was a night to forget for Mikel Arteta.
Pre-game
Mikel Arteta made six changes from the side that beat Sheffield United at the weekend. As expected Aaron Ramsdale replaced David Raya between the sticks with Gabriel Magalhaes replacing William Saliba in front of him. Despite suggestions he might start against his old club, Declan Rice took up a place on the bench with Jorginho marshalling the midfield alongside Kai Havertz and Fabio Vieira. In attack, Reiss Nelson and Leo Trossard were charged with providing the ammunition for Saturday’s hat-trick hero Eddie Nketiah. Worryingly, there was no place in the squad for Emile Smith Rowe with the manager confirming pre-game that the England international had picked up a knee issue.
First Half
Arsenal’s best chance of a tepid first half performance came and went inside the opening 10 minutes with Kai Havertz forcing Lukasz Fabianski into a smart save with a flicked header from a Reiss Nelson free-kick. After that we had plenty of the ball but struggled to create clearcut opportunities. In response, West Ham played on the counter-attack and managed to take the lead without having a shot on goal.
16 minutes were on the lock when Jarod Bown whipped a left-foot corner towards Arsenal’s near post where Ben White crashed a header into his own net. The replay showed Aaron Ramsdale was clearly having his shirt pulled by Soucek but with no VAR in play, the calls for a free-kick fell on deaf ears. (GOAL 1-0)
Havertz continued to be heavily involved but things just didn’t come off for the German. He fluffed a half chance as we tried to hit back quickly and then had a couple of loose touches that led to jeers from the home fans. As the half wore on, you could see the confidence draining from him.
Looking to make amends for the own goal, White forced Fabianski into a save with a looping header and from the follow-up corner Nketiah flashed a header of his own just past the post. His reaction told you everything you needed to know – he should have done better.
At the other end, another Bowen corner caused havoc in the Gunners’ box with Ramsdale fighting for the ball at the back post with Soucek. This time a free-kick went our way.
Sensing the Arsenal keeper was feeling jittery on his return to the team, the home support tried to get into Ramsdale’s head whenever he was on the ball but he stuck to his guns by playing out from the back more often than not.
Arteta’s side did have other half-chances before the whistle went. Nelson had a shot blocked after intercepting a pass on the edge of the Hammers box, Havertz bounced a header wide and Nketiah hit over after neat link-up play between Trossard and Zinchenko.
On the bench, Martinelli, Saka and Odegaard looked on passively.
Second Half
West Ham came out of the traps quickly and when Paqueta picked Jorginho’s pocket and fed Bowen he looked odds on to double the home side’s lead. Ramsdale made the save – an untidy one that saw the ball squirm behind him – before White tidied up.
Arsenal didn’t heed the warning. On 50 minutes, a long diagonal found Kudus lurking behind Zinchenko. The Ghanaian took one touch to cut back on himself and then drilled home low on the diagonal. It was a tidy finish but that shouldn’t hide the fact we defended like lemmings. (GOAL 2-0)
Losing duels all over the pitch, it was little surprise to see Arteta send on Declan Rice and Takehiro Tomiyasu for Jorginho and Zinchenko. The Hammers supporters gave their former captain a warm welcome and then had a third goal to celebrate; Bowen controlled a headed clearance by White just outside the box and lashed the ball through Ramsdale via a deflection off Kiwior’s thigh. (GOAL 3-0)
While most Arsenal supporters would have been happy to take the defeat on the chin and move on, Arteta decided it was worth sending on the big guns for the final 30 minutes. Martinelli and Saka replaced Trossard and Nelson but you never sensed a repeat of the Premier League comeback we made in 2021.
While most Arsenal supporters would have been happy to take the defeat on the chin and move on, Arteta decided it was worth sending on the big guns for the final 30 minutes. Martinelli and Saka replaced Trossard and Nelson, and later Odegaard would take over from Nketiah, but you never sensed a repeat of the Premier League comeback we made in 2021.
West Ham were happy to sit back and hit us on the break when they could be bothered. Lucas Paqueta was so sure of the win he even indulged in some outrageous playground showboating that nearly made a fool of Vieira.
If there was a positive, perhaps it was Odegaard’s cameo. He’d already stung Fabianski’s palms before finding the net deep in stoppage time with a tidy left-foot finish. (GOAL 3-1) After a difficult few weeks for him, hopefully, he can carry the momentum into Saturday’s tricky trip to Newcastle United.
If you want to cheer yourself up, just hit up on one on the remote.
‘Up one’
West ham wanted it more, everyone played badly, missing cohesion today.
There’s Manure vs Newcastle in UK, bit of sarcasm I guess the castles are cruising
I think Newcastle winning and us losing this eve is a good thing for Saturday.
Vieira had an absolute shocker today. No idea how he lasted 9 minutes, let alone 90
I’m not sure it was a shocker, as this is roughly what he does. Some nice touches, but no real drive.
That’s pretty hyperbollic. He was ok, had some decent moment, definitely not worse than the majority of our players on the night, even got an assist at the end. I’d say there were worse culprits for this defeat, not least Zinchenko, Trossard and Eddie.
Trossard is being played in the wrong position. He’s not a winger. Sure he can drift, but he’s wasted out there. He’s an interior player ffs.
Arteta had completely abandoned what went well last season with him centrally.
They got lucky but we weren’t at our best…created precious little…on to Newcastle
Sure they got lucky. But they have made some excellent signings.
I was calling for Kudus all summer, and in 11 games he has shown more than Eddie in 3 years. A hattrick against the worst team in the league means nothing if you’ve failed to score in 15 previously.
Kudus looks sharp as a knife. Really good. He is exactly the sort of fresh, dynamic player we needed to add upfront.
We are playing slow, boring, sterile football. The lack of effort that the starting 11 showed was shocking. Pretty disappointing as this should have been a “big game” for them.
Good to see Odegaard looking sharp again. Other than that, a passionless,energy free snoozefest
Thanks for bringing it up, whoever thought buying Harvertz was better than Kudus is up to us. Did you see Kudus play? And compare that to what we’ve gotten from Harvertz,,, clearly we have to improve in certain areas!
Gulf in quality between starting 11 and back ups is shocking.
For some reason my comment is in moderation… so I’ll hijack yours. Exactly this. Now we know what happens when you play Jorginho, Havertz and Vieira at the same time. It’s not pretty.
I’m not sure that that’s the case. We’ve also been slow and ponderous with the first team players this season. It’s probably deliberate, but it wasn’t Nelson’s fault that he wasn’t breezing past opposition defenders early on. We were simply unfortunate to go behind like we did, which played into West Ham’s entire strategy.
could be. but I saw nothing from the front three that warranted some starts in important games in the PL.
I guess that is why they are backups
Wasn’t so shocking a few days ago vs. Sheffield? Maybe it’s not just about the quality of the players- who are all very talented and good enough to beat West Ham – but also their chemistry, current form and how well they play on the night.
Sheffield United are absolute shite and conceded 22 goals in 6 games – 13 in two of those alone. I don’t think they are a fair comparison…
Listen to yourself, you are referencing Sheffield United 😂
They’re deluded.
Sounds like excuses to me.
It’s the opposite from excuses. If anything saying the players aren’t good enough is excusing them, I say they can and should damn well play better than that!
So shocking, in fact, that we’ve had to wait until November for our first defeat of the season….
What’s even more shocking is my memory…..😂
Yes, we lost to Lens.
Well at least we know what happens if we play all our misfiring midfielders at the same time
Well at least we know our strongest starting eleven
Diabolical performance until the subs. Really worrying because if we’re going to push City all the way, we’ll need our second string firing on all cylinders. But too many of them are coasting on 5/10 performances at the moment.
Throwing together 11 players who don’t regularly play with each other and hoping for the best is not a cohesive game plan. We rotated heavily because we realistically didn’t care. Noone was going guns blazing because they realise that Premier League minutes are far more important and valuable. We went through the motions today and lost against a pretty much full West Ham team. No surprise really, and I don’t think anyone will be particularly phased by the result. I honestly wouldn’t read much into it.
My main worry is Ramsdale playing for the first time in ages and conceding three…cannae have done him any good, irrespective of how the game in general is viewed, no?
They train together everyday, what do you mean they don’t play together every week?
I hear what you’re saying but it’s still worrying. Arteta may not care much for the league cup, but the fringe players should care about impressing and they were very unimpressive tonight.
The fella on here said the other day nketia links play, wins headers, closes down, tackles and reads the game 😂😂😂.
Nketiah doing his best impression of the patented Giroud trot. I’d be surprised if he even broke a sweat today.
we have Nketiah, City have Alvarez 🤷🏻♂️
Did you think Alvarez would have signed for us? Better yet, if us spending 105 mil for Rice, would we have got Alvarez as well. Sure, there would have been takers for Nketiah from some other PL teams, but??? (There’s always a but in this imperfect world innit?) I’m amazed how some fickle fans can be. We’re not the Top Dog. We’re not going to attract world class strikers or match winners like Man City or Liverpool or Madrid does. The sooner you realize that, well, I don’t know how it works for you, good luck mate.
Hopefully buying clubs in the summer will remember the hattrick more than this one.
Nketiah is an outage. But I’d be shock if Arteta puts Nketiah up for sale in January. First arteta is stubborn. He trusts Nketiah. Second, unless we buy a striker, I don’t see Nketiah going anywhere.
No need for a striker when we have £65M of heavenly Havertz! 🤣🤣🤣
That was me, baby! I love Eddie — he’s a beast!!
🤣🤣🤣
Sometimes things just don’t go your way and you could just see the energy draining. Let’s hope for better on Saturday.
Great to see something positive from Odegaard though!
Absolute banter goal to steal away West Ham’s clean sheet was delicious. Freed up some of our match schedule; we definitely have bigger fish to fry. We move.
My thoughts exactly
Never thought that second string would be good enough to beat West Ham. All of those players individually can slot into the first team but they are not good enough together.
Who cares anyway, it’s the League Cup.
Beat the saudis at the weekend and we can forget this game ever happened.
Vieira, Havertz and Nketiah. Nope, not for me. Imagine any of them in Man City or Liverpool. Felt for Nelson, though he was by far and away our biggest threat he should have stayed on instead of all the others.
There’s was lots on here raving about nketia Saturday after he scored hat trick against Sheffield United, one of worse teams to ever play in the premiership. The fickle fans brigade were out in force. 😂
I am impressed by your consistent prickliness. Well done, old man!
Don’t take it too personally, there were lots in here Saturday not just your good self. 😂
Yeah, but I really led the way — I spent a lot of time on Friday talking Eddie up and guaranteeing his worth. I love defending our players! I don’t think there will be many goals in the Newcastle match, but Eddie will be important to the win.
Careful, the thumbs are ready! 🤣
Nice bit of wanky spurs fans
Nketiah is so good, that City want to do a direct swap with their backup, Alvarez
you are obviously blind, Eddie being a 9 requires better service from those behind him but the entire time he was on the pitch he had one-half chance which he blazed over and a header from a corner, other than that there was nothing. But it’s ok to blame it on Eddie, Havertz squanders chance after chance in the first half and no it’s Eddie, We play laborious football of sideways and backward passes. But no, it’s Eddie. There’s global warming, its Eddie, your dog took a dump on your rag it’s Eddie. Be objective and look at the entire… Read more »
Unprofessional.
What a shower of shit. I know this isn’t our first eleven but they should be able to put a few passes together, surely? Slow, backwards, poor decisions. Eddie back to his anonymous self, Trossard is always bloody useless when he starts, Jorginho was awful and Zinchenko even worse. Edu has a lot to think about watching those frauds, and Partey is always fucking injured when you need him. This is the season we’re supposed to have some squad depth, and this lot really aren’t it. I felt sorry for Ramsdale, he didn’t deserve that.
Shit performance, good result
We should have gotten Kudus… he’s a gunner as well…that would have been real quality added instead of 65m down the drain
Wahey! Ødegaard scored! 😃
I’m not mad at Arteta for rotating. This is down to the players he put out there. But Arteta would be idiotic to keep relying on clowns like Nketiah and Havertz. Both were crap tonight – same goes for Zinchenko, Gabriel and Jorginho. I’m gutted for Ramsdale. His defense let him down. Hope we we quickly recover from this embarking defeat before we face Newcastle
Embarrassing
We should take some lessons learned from this and not bag it away. 1. If MA is serious to treat goalkeepers as any other player, he must give Aaron games in PL. Now we have one ok keeper ( Raya) and one slipped into mediocracy. 2. This team desperately need a forward of top quality. I’m afraid that Eddie today was closer to the real Eddie than Sheffield Eddie. 3. Feel really sorry for Havertz , but he’s looking more and more like a lost cause. 4. Tomi need to play more and at least start against Newcastle. Zinchy is… Read more »
Given Arteta was a midfielder, Arsenal is indeed a mediocracy.
That was Pedestrian. Unimaginative. Insipid. Our “Strength in depth” might be a farce after all. It’s not looking good for Saturday, I’m afraid.
It’s looking very good for Saturday because Raya, Saliba, Rice, Saka, Martinelli, and Odegaard will all start.
No, it is not. Newcastle are brimming with confidence after turning United over (not that it takes much to do that these days anyway). They will want to start on the front foot on Saturday. If we let them get into their stride, we are done for. Besides, Nketiah will still play up top, so expect him to be effectively marked like tonight.
As a club I’m sure Newcastle are buzzing after last night but it will be immaterial on Saturday – they rotated 9 players last night – it will be a completely different team that start against Arsenal.
I hope they do try to start on the front foot and that Nketiah is effectively marked, then that will create more space for Rice, Saka, Martinelli, Odegaard to play their game.
Unlucky for the first goal with Ramsdake clearly impeded, but we just didn’t want it enough tonight. Arteta should have rang the changes at half time. On a different note, watching Newcastle batter Man U, remind me again why we sold Joe willock?!
Cause we put 5 mil on top of that and got Odegaard
Oh well, it’s only the League Cup, blah blah blah….😂 Seriously though, a first defeat of the season happening in November and not a Premiership defeat is not bad going. Some woeful defending aside, we were never allowed to get going due to the textbook anti Arsenal bias of the so called officials – it’s so blatant now as to be embarrassing. I daresay a lot of morons from outer space will be throwing their Maharishi clad teddy bears out of their prams, but I’ve already moved on – much as I would have liked us to win this competition.… Read more »
We lost in Europe, Q. It’s our second defeat of the season.
Oh yeah! I clean forgot!
First domestic defeat!
There you go!! 😂
We lost to Lens as well…
I cannot understand why Vieira lasted 90 minutes. He is so weak, has no drive and makes only diagonal passes. Arteta likes him but he is no where to be a first team player.
Waiting to hear about Kai’s runs off the ball, his duels won and all the other valuable contributions he offers that us simpletons just can’t see or appreciate.
If you can’t see his contributions, you haven’t put your monocle on.
Make a youtube video of yourself playing football, no matter what position you play, and how much work you put yourself through it. Of course Kai earns millions, but you pittance. But thats not that. Please educate us, how you contribute to a football team. Simpletons as you call yourself, I’m sure you’re more knowledgeable than us peasants. Go on. I’ll be the first to Subscribe to your channel.
our back ups vs west hams first xi. west ham have been very good this season so the result isn’t a surprise. we needed someone like emile smith rowe in midfield today for a more direct threat and a more balanced midfield. jorginho, havertz and fabio all played too safe for me. fabio needs players alongside him that will run behind – but west ham didn’t really afford us any space by defending super low. would have been a better game for odegaard who can shoots from long range vs low block. rice or elneny instead of jorginho would have… Read more »
We should have played our best team from the start. As soon as I saw that line-up I knew we were doomed.
But some horrible performances from the reserves.
The A team need to beat Newcastle at the weekend.
A bad night for the manager.
Be honest. If Saka started and pulled up after 7 mins with a hamstring injury, would you have said he shouldn’t have started?
No
Should have played our best team from the start? Then you would be on here railing against Arteta for not rotating because we need the A team for Newcastle! It’s always a bad night night for the manager with you it seems.
Please have a look at a post I made yesterday. I was urging Arteta to start strong.
Bringing on the stars when we’re 3-0 down was futile. We should have started strong and taken the big players off when we were in control of the game.
We handed it to West Ham tonight.
I honestly believe our squad depth is overrated.
The change in style (why we couldn’t stick with our attacking style then change to a pragmatic style in games that required is baffling!) and players like Havertz always mean results like this are never far away.
I thought we were decent in the first half. They got a fluke goal, but other than that, don’t think they had a shot on target. Second half, not so much. Poor defending by both Zinch and Gabriel on the second goal, and another in a long list for Zinch. Tomi should start against Newcastle. Kudus would be an ideal alternative to Saka, but I suspect he’s too good to want only a backup role. And that group of players was not going to come back from two down against a well-coaced team at home. And they got a third… Read more »
Granted there was rotation, but no one covered themselves in glory today. Slow and ineffective with the ball. And West Ham just looked way sharper.
I was willing to give Havertz some time before commenting, but there’s a reasonable amount of minutes behind him now. He looks like all the worst parts of Ozil with none of the technical quality or creativity. The ball just seems to bounce off him. He desperately needs something to go his way, and soon
One positive from todays game was that we kept playing till the final whistle.
Serious question. Is it too early to give up on Havertz?
I know people say give him time. But in the 12/13 games I’ve watched this year, I’ve yet to see him do anything. And I mean anything. How much longer should I be waiting for something to happen?
Yes, it’s too early. It may not look promising, but there are plenty of examples of players needing a year or more to figure it out. I think we especially need to be patient here for three reasons: (1) we know that there’s talent in there, (2) he did not come in with a set position or role, and so it may take a while yet to see if and where he fits, and (3) we paid a ton for him, you can’t just immediately say, oh well, he’s not working out.
“…(1) we know that there’s talent in there”…eh?! That gave me a good laugh. Thanks.
Blah Blah Blah.. This player didn’t play well, that player was crap, how he played 90 mins et al. First of, nobody cares about the EFL cup. Not me, not you(keep lying to yourself). I don’t care how the players performed. We’re not Liverpool or ManCity. We don’t have Team B. Simple as that. Squad players, sure but if anyone thinks we’re going to win the league or CL, you’re delusional. Before you get your pitch forks up my arse, I commented way back that Mikel Arteta would be a better manager than Henry. That was when AFTV clowns were… Read more »