A brace from Bukayo Saka, headers from Gabriel Magalhaes and William Saliba and fine strikes by Leandro Trossard and Declan Rice saw Arsenal destroy West Ham 6-0 on their own patch.
Having dropped important points from a winning position at the London Stadium last season, this was a result laced with revenge and one that keeps the Gunners within touching distance of league leaders Liverpool with 14 games remaining.
After the game, Saka, who was awarded the man of the match award, and club captain Martin Odegaard faced the Sky Sports cameras. Here’s what they had to say…
On a great win…
MO: Yeah, brilliant performance. I think from start to end, we dominated, controlled everything, and today we were really sharp in front of goal as well. So, yeah, very good performance.
On sensing a chance to do some damage…
BS: Yeah, definitely, definitely. We were 4-0 up in the first half and we could have scored many more including myself, we smelled blood today and we went for the kill. We did really well to score more and yeah we’re happy.
On hitting 50 goals for Arsenal…
BS: To be honest, I’m really happy to achieve that, but I’m not sure I can be happy today. I missed some chances that I thought I could have scored, you know, but obviously it’s a great achievement, so I’m proud of that.
On needing to build on the Liverpool win…
MO: Yeah, very happy and I’m proud of the team. I think coming from a big game, a big win and backing it up today with another great performance…as I said really sharp in front of goals, I think that’s what we’ve been missing a little bit the last few weeks and today we really show that quality we have and yeah we’re very very happy.
On sending a message to the other sides in the title race…
MO: We’re focusing on ourselves and and what we do every day and we don’t care too much about the other teams. We focus on ourselves we keep working hard and yeah good win and we move on.
And blood we ‘licked’, come on ‘Vampires’, 😂😂😂
Usually, he starts the season slowly, gets into his groove in the middle of it, before tailing off towards the end of the year.
This time looks different. The season is fastly gliding towards the end and our Starboy is starting to get into his groove. Looks ominous, but not for us!
My friend asked if i have to choose one between fully fit Partey or Rice, who will i chose. I couldnt really answer.
Partey or Rice
upvote for partey, downvote for Rice
Rice, Saka, Gabriel are fast becoming my favorite Gunners. You know why? Because availability is really, really crucial.
You forgot to mention Martinelli!
I think that was a difficult one, I absolutely love DR but a fit Partey is beautiful on the eyes, and there are certain passes only he can give. I dare say the reason we haven’t been pleasing to the eyes for most of the season is Partey’s absence, he is so good, but will I swap anyone for DR, no way! We need them both bro!
Prolly gonna sell Partey this fall
If there is a buyer and he wants to play for them. Equally as likely he stays another year and plays when he is fit. We paid £50 fee and if we got £15 back, I would move him. Hard to generate fees from players who do not play.
i would argue that Thomas Partey is the best CDM in the world on his day and when fully fit. The problem is that he is barely ever fully fit or at his best, which brings him down a peg.
Fantastic. absolutely bloody lovely. What a performance with a whole host of our stars unavailable. (was there a bug going round????)
Good to see the kid EN get a few minutes as well.
HAd some nice touches
Killers
We’ve won 6-0 and Saka scored two including his 50th goal for the club and he’s not happy because he thinks he should have more? I’m afraid we may have a monster being created ladies and gentlemen.
S(h)a(r)ka. There was blood in the water and it turned into a feeding frenzy!
This is the difference between this team and the teams before. Two years ago they would’ve gone two up and thought “job done”. Now they want more, and that is the signs of a side that can do big things. Love it.