Mikel Arteta was delighted with his team’s mentality and ruthlessness as Arsenal demolished West Ham 6-0.
Victory at the London Stadium was built on set-piece dominance with William Saliba and Gabriel scoring headers from Declan Rice’s crosses and Bukayo Saka netting a spot-kick that banishes the memory of his penalty miss on the same ground last year. Leandro Trossard rounded off the scoring in the first half with a fine curled effort.
The Gunners were in no mood to take it easy on the hosts. Saka drove into the box and smashed a low effort in at the near post before Declan Rice, with his final touch of the game, found the net from 25 yards out. Having had his early touches booed by some of the home supporters, the ex-Hammer left the field to a standing ovation.
Arteta rang the changes in the closing stages handing minutes to 16-year-old Ethan Nwaneri, his first appearance of the season, and a number of fringe players. Having arrived in east London with a long injury list, the day couldn’t have gone any better.
After the game, the manager couldn’t hide his pride in a complete performance.
“I’m extremely happy,” he told Sky Sports. “The way we performed, the way we played. Such a big score in a really difficult place tells you a lot about how well the boys played today.”
On the scoreline being Arsenal’s biggest away win in the Premier League and the biggest winning margin in the league since 1935 when Ted Drake scored all seven goals in a 7-1 win at Aston Villa, he added:
“It’s great to make [club] history especially the way we have done it. We’re in a good moment and when you have good moments you have to build and maintain the momentum.
“The team from the beginning looked really sharp. We had to put right the last two results against them and that was a good motivation for the boys.”
Arteta was also full of praise for Bukayo Saka whose brace took his total goal contributions for the Gunners to the 100-mark (51 goals & 49 assists).
“When you talk about consistency at his age…what he has done in the last two or three seasons in remarkable,” said Arteta.
“His attitude, his quality, what he delivers every week…it’s really difficult to find. That’s why he is so important to us.”
The boss was also hugely impressed by Declan Rice’s contribution. Having had a difficult game against his old club in December, the England international was at his dynamic best today, capping off his all-energy performance with a beautiful long-range effort.
“It’s always difficult to come back to your old club,” continued Arteta. :The fans were really good to him. When he went to take the corner they clapped him, so it’s great to see that kind of reception. He loves this club so much and I know what it meant to him to play today.
“We have to share the goals. That desire and that commitment to get into the box to make things happen, it was excellent.”
Let’s keep it going this season! We dropped off last time, let’s !earn from that!
Yep. Great result. But means nothing if we fuck it up at Turf Moor.
Thank you. As someone who was literally born yesterday, it was previously unclear to me that in association football, in order for teams to win trophies, they need to have runs of successive victories. Good to get this cleared up.
That’s ok glad to be of help!
What next? You’re gonna tell us we need the get the most points to win the league?
So freaking dominant. It had a eerily similar vibe to the other West Ham games early on with Hammers threatening on the counter a bit, but once we took that first goal it was curtains. Most dominant final 60mins of the season. Remember West Ham fans laughing at us paying $100M for Rice and bragging about their 3 bargain replacements? Well it’s clear now they picked them up at the dollar store for a reason. Rice, as Johnny4Hats put it, is legit in the discussion for EPL player of the season. What a player. Also so so good to have… Read more »
We got Rice for 50% discount price. He is worth twice what we paid for him.
No doubt, best performance of the season. West Ham atrocious, but they couldn’t get close to us because of the precision, movement and combination play. Keep playing like this!!!!
Its always a tough one when you play as well as we did against a side like Liverpool in a huge game that meant a lot to us, and the big question always is, what did that game actually mean? You can only quantify it, if you go on to win the next game, and the next one, and the next one..etc And today was one of those kinds of thing, when with City and Liverpool winning earlier on, it would’ve been so easy for us to let those results affect us in a negative way, and put on a… Read more »
Very impressive result and performance.
The key thing is that we are finding form at the business end of the season and not the first half of the season like we did last season – we seem to have more energy this time around.
We need to get Zinchenko, Partey, Jesus and Timber back so we can rotate a little.
Nwaneri get some minutes was a really good thing as well – he looks like he is going to be a great player.
We will look back on this game in years to come and wonder if was played during COVID restrictions with all the empty seats vacated by the sames fans booing Rice for lack of loyalty.
“When he went to take the corner they clapped him” I’d be surprised if they kept doing it after our 3rd goal and his 2nd assist from a corner or corner-like free kick. Boy, feels good to be on the right side of that of that “player destroys former club” thing for once. Might be able to let go now of some old nightmares of Cesc in blue and RVP in Manure red (not to mention that c*nt Adebayor)
At this time if you were picking the best 11 players in the world on form, you will probably have Rice and Odegard in there for sure, with Saliba, Gabriel and Saka with a very close call to be in that first 11.
Arteta is also so classy, there’s humility and grace along with pride- definitely Arsene’s influence there. Talking about how much Rice loves his old club is a sign of respect not just to the player but also to West Ham.
Amazing how we could score 6 away, but in December we dropped our trousers and fed them viagra and cocaine.
It’s almost as if football is often random and weird things can happen in a game
We moved the ball much faster and took more clinical shots in this game compared to the one December where everything was slow and predictable. I also believe having Trossard, Havertz, and Martinelli constantly changing their positions will confuse the FK out of the opponent, where as if we put Nketia up front in a fixed position it will make defending much easier.
Just me or did Raya become an Arsenal player today ?
Felt the same. He had a bit of swagger like the rest of the team. Great to see.
He’s been in great form since the 4-3 win (his only really bad performance of the season).