Arsenal recorded their biggest-ever away win in the Premier League with a 6-0 crushing of West Ham that keeps up the pressure on title rivals Manchester City and Liverpool.
The Gunners had the game won at half-time thanks to headers from William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes, a penalty by Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard’s fine strike. The visitors then turned the screw after the break, extending the advantage through Saka’s second and a thunderous effort by Declan Rice against his old club.
Here’s what the managers, players, pundits and stattos had to say after a very satisfying afternoon in east London.
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Mikel Arteta on what he said to his players before the game…
Time to beat West Ham. We all knew it, we all had it in our tummies and we knew that it was going to be a really tough match and we had to do certain things, especially in both boxes, better than we did in the previous match and we certainly did today.
Source: Post-game press conference (via Hayters)
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David Moyes on his side’s performance…
We’ve got no excuses, we didn’t play well at all. We gave them too much respect and we defended woefully well. And look, my teams don’t normally defend as badly as we have, but we’ve had one or two this season as well, so I’m going to have to start looking a bit closer to see what we can do. That [conceding from set pieces] was probably the biggest thing that annoyed me. We knew Arsenal were strong at set pieces, they look as if they work very hard on it as they do and they caused us problems today but in the main we’ve been pretty good at defending them, we’ve been also quite good at scoring from them but we didn’t get enough today to prove we were good at scoring. We certainly didn’t defend them well enough today either.
Source: beIN SPORTS
West Ham (0.33) 0-6 (4.36) Arsenal
— The xG Philosophy (@xGPhilosophy) February 11, 2024
William Saliba on taking revenge on West Ham…
That’s a very good win today because West Ham beat us twice this season and we wanted to do well today. We did well, we scored six goals, a clean sheet and that’s a very good result today. When a team beats you, you want to beat them again. And that’s the only team to beat us twice this season. So we had the chance to win today and we did it well. We know there is some games [to go], so we will give everything, we will take it game-by-game. Now we are focused on the next game and after we will be focused on the next game and next game. And we will see at the end.
Source: beIN SPORTS
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Vladimir Coufal on Arsenal dominating West Ham…
I’ve never experienced such a big loss like today and I hope I never experience it again. It’s so embarrassing for me and the team when [Arsenal] are passing the ball to each other and their fans are applauding every pass. It’s embarrassing for us, for the fans, for West Ham. I don’t have the words, or the explanation, for the performance today. Maybe we showed Arsenal too much respect but we should never play like this at home. We should be right on them, pressing them, keeping them under pressure. But they played so well today. They played much better than they did in those other two games this season, when we beat them, and it felt like they were just absolutely everywhere today.
Source: whufc.com
This is Arsenal's biggest away win in the league since December 1935 when they beat Aston Villa 7-1 and Ted Drake scored all seven of the Gunners' goals that day.#WHUARS
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) February 11, 2024
Arteta on Saka taking the penalty having missed against the Hammers last season…
I had doubts whether he was going to take it or not because of what happened. But it shows you as well how mature he is and as well how determined he is to go to the next level.
Source: Post-game press conference (via Hayters)
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Paul Merson on Arsenal’s win…
Just a massive result. One, it’s done the goal difference the world of good. If this was Man City today who just won this game by six, we would be waxing lyric. They’ve made West Ham surrender. They’ve literally made West Ham surrender. They’ve turned up, they’ve started well, and they’ve carried it on and they kept on going and going. A brilliant, brilliant result by Arsenal, brilliant result.
Source: Sky Sports
xG: You have a 2% chance of scoring from this position.
Declan Rice: pic.twitter.com/btJhtOy8u7
— The xG Philosophy (@xGPhilosophy) February 11, 2024
Saliba on Declan Rice
Yeah, he did quite well. He did two assists, one goal. He’s a good player, a very good and important player for us. We are so happy for him.
Source: beIN SPORTS
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Arteta on deciding to give minutes to Ethan Nwaneri…
There is something that you have to earn when you’re in a team and that’s the trust of your teammates. I had two things, one the players on the bench whispering ‘bring Ethan in’, which is a great thing to hear. And the other is when your teammates want to give you the ball all the time. If they do that, they really trust you. You can see how many times he was involved, so it’s a great sign.
Source: Post-game press conference (via Hayters)
1 – @Arsenal's Martin Ødegaard is the first player on record (since 2003-04) to complete 100+ passes (107), create at least five chances (7), and assist multiple goals (2) in the same Premier League match. Maestro. pic.twitter.com/wHYNdkvkvF
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) February 11, 2024
Roy Keane on Arsenal following up on last weekend’s win over Liverpool…
They’ve just had to keep that momentum going. To come and score six goals away from home, it’s obviously fantastic. We can criticise West Ham all we want but credit to Arsenal. They were efficient. They were strong. And the way they won the game, with that set piece and aerial threat, you probably could have scored a few more goals. Great day for Arsenal.
Source: Sky Sports
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Arteta on Saka saying Arsenal smelled blood today…
That’s up to him to say. What I smell, is a team that wants to get better and better. The way they trained this week, they were totally focused the day after Liverpool to say, OK, now it’s a big task and now it’s time to go another level and beat West Ham. They certainly have done that today.
Source: Post-game press conference (via Hayters)
Game. Set. Match. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/gZ1jEqfjW7
— Leandro Trossard (@LTrossard) February 11, 2024
Arteta on Tomiyasu missing out today…
He had a niggle when he came back from the national team and it was not the time to risk him after the minutes he’s played [for Japan].
Source: Post-game press conference (via Hayters)
Martin Odegaard on being club captain and the connection with the fans…
It’s been a joy since I was handed the armband and I enjoyed every moment. I’ve said it many times, I love this team and I love what we’re doing. We’re going to keep pushing, keep improving and hopefully we can improve all the time. The last game at home was an incredible atmosphere – maybe the best I’ve seen in my life, to be honest. The supporters have given us so much the whole season last year they’ve been there, and we want to keep giving them something back. Today was another good way to do that.
Source: Arsenal.com
Martin Odegaard is the 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 player to create 50+ chances from open play in Europe's top five leagues this season 🪄 pic.twitter.com/WZdjFdT7hW
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) February 11, 2024
Martin Keown on a statement win…
You talk about experience and going the course. You have to have been in that race. I know Arsenal haven’t won it, but they were in it last year and they switched off at times. Now they are in the zone, you could see that at the start of the game, the players were focused, you heard that in the interviews, the things they are saying afterwards, it’s all the right things. But performance is the most important thing and that was emphatic today, it sends a real message to Manchester City and Liverpool, they know Arsenal are in the race.
Source: Premier League Productions
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Gary Neville on Arsenal’s title chances…
With Declan Rice in the team, they are a lot better and William Saliba is fit. They’ve got a really good chance, Arsenal. But they are up against Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola. That’s big. If Mikel Arteta drives a bus through those two and wins the league this year, it would be a monumental achievement. He’s in with a chance.
Source: Sky Sports
David Raya completed all 21 passes he attempted today against West Ham. The only keeper to attempt more while maintaining a 100% success rate for #Arsenal in a Premier League game on record (since 2003-04) was Bernd Leno vs his current club Fulham in September 2020 (30/30). pic.twitter.com/xitIre0x16
— Harvey Downes (@HarveyDownes92) February 11, 2024
Is Ted Drake still available?
Yes, but his name is now Ced Drake.
Actually Ted had 8 attempts on goal that day v villa. 7 scored and hit the bar with the other
I remember it well.
Nice profile name!
Lol.. me too
He actually had an 8th goal disallowed in that game. He asked the ref why it was disallowed and the ref told him not to be greedy!
He will be dead Drake now 🤣
I’ll get my coat
Hmmm, I think we swipe the legend Charlie G off the stadium tours and get him in the pitch.
Now add Jesus, zinchenko, partey, Tomi, timber and smith Rowe to the mixer and we are cooking. We have come along way from losing one key player and collapsing
We could add Vieira as well.
Totally forgot Viera, should be a good lock picker when needed
Saliba’s definitely acclimating to English culture, that’s like if I would say Saliba is quite good as a defender.
on a different topic, West Ham’s 0.33 expected goal was about as expected as Garry Neville would be expected to say something intelligent. I know they had a shot or two on goal, I just can’t remember it and I don’t think even they expected themselves to score any of them.
Go look up ‘quite’ in a dictionary and get back to us on English.
firstly I wasn’t talking about the English language and not sure why you’re attacking me about it, and second, ‘quite’ has two meanings, unlike in North America in my experience the way it’s most used in England is for understatement, so would mean Saliba thinks Rice did fairly well
Similarly , not that bad.
You’re not wrong with your interpretation, but it could also be a deadpan tongue-in-cheek bit of #bantz , playing down his mate’s achievement rather than fawn over him with platitudes and adulation 🤷♂ “yeh he was alright I guess”
Could be, but that’s very much a local thing too!
so either way he seems pretty settled
So glad Declan did quite well, can’t wait for to him be really good,
Yeah, Ethan coming on and Øde passing the ball to him over and over again was just beautiful to see. There’s a reason everyone says Øde is a leader in that dressing room, even without all the shouting and pointing.
Not, only Ethan. The number of times they passed the ball to Elneny after he came on says everything about the togetherness of the team..
“I had two things, one the players on the bench whispering ‘bring Ethan in’, which is a great thing to hear.”
I really love this and it also suggests something about the players-coach relationship. I think there’s no doubt who’s boss but it also suggests a certain lack of aloofness from Arteta, maybe because he’s relatively young. But it’s maybe hard to imagine City players being like ‘go on then bring [promising 16 y/o] on wink wink’ to Pep.
I interpreted the opposite, Arteta has a better relationship with his players than Pep.
I have to say, I think Gabriel is in contention for our player of the season currently. Goal threat, awesome in defence. Limited errors despite arguably having more defensive work to do covering our non existent LB position. Beast.
And to think that there were rumours at the start of the season about him going to Saudi.
Not a rumor.
He mentioned there was a genuine interest from Saudi.
It was MA that helped his career by speaking sense to him.
To even think he needed to be convinced of staying at Arsenal and rejecting Saudi offervis laughable.
Ah but he did.
West Hammered United fans left
early because they were fed up with the Arsenal fans disgracefully celebrating the goals!!😂
We did everything right today, but I was really expecting we would send more West Ham fans home at halftime. Something for Arteta and the team to work on before the next game.
take nothing away from saka …..odegaard should be man of the match. His timing, field vision, ability to turn and drive was on brilliant display today
Those Odegaard stats are nuts. To paraphase the Merse, if he was playing for City, pundits would be making Meg Ryan noises and a mess of their pants
So true!! If KDB was performing like that then we’d never hear the end of it…..
Jakub Kiwior at LB looked good! He added some grit to the backline, and is a very tidy footballer.
I feel what made a difference to Kiwior’s performance in this match was that Ben White was the fullback drifting into midfield and Kiwior could just focus on playing LB
I was hoping Saka would get an assist so that he could simultaneously bring both his totals for goals (50) and assist (49) to half a century in the same game. Would’ve been a cool trivia question, possibly a PL record of some sort.
To think that this team is probably 2 seasons off their prime (age-wise) and a couple players short of what Arteta probably wants is staggering…
No bollocks from Carragher or Neville today?
Both neutered, hence the high pitched wines
Our captain is pure class.
Paul Merson is right, if it had been West Ham 0: Man City 6 the media would be wanking itself backwards over Pep and Co 🙄
Well said, Merse 💖
Awfully quiet from the celebration police? They must be thinking of a problem with Rice’s non celebration. H-h-h-he took too long to hold his hands up!! The disrespect!!
“Are Arsenal slight favorites ? Probably, but I certainly wouldn’t be writing West Ham off” – pre-game Roy Kunt.
Basking like a Basking 🦈 today, so much to enjoy about yesterday’s game, no silly mistakes, top performance by all of the team, Hammers leaving early, our supporters taking the piss, our bench warmers being involved, 6 goals away from home which could of been more from a side that lack a killer upfront, thought Ode was immense yesterday playing balls through the channels, tasty flicks around the area, got to Havertz a shout out also, as much he’s been maligned this season by a certain few his performance v Liverpool & yesterdays show what he brings to the table,… Read more »