Reactions As West Ham Dent Arsenal’s Title Hopes

West Ham recorded a shocking 2-0 win over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium on Thursday night to deny the Gunners the opportunity to overtake Liverpool in the title race.

Arsenal dominated possession but they failed to convert their numerous chances as West Ham found joy at the Emirates.

West Ham scored two of their three shot on target to earn the maximum points.

Thomas Soucek poked in Jarrod Bowen’s cut back for the first goal before Konstantinos Mavropanos headed in the second goal in the second half to make it 2-0.

Declan Rice was penalised for a foul in the 18-yard box, but Said Benrahma missed from the spot late in the game.

Arsenal vs West Ham Reactions

Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta admitted he was very disappointed with his team’s display.

Arteta said: “We want to be at the top and today we are very, very disappointed, We had so much dominance in the game.

“We are in a really good position. Today is a disappointing night. We have to pick ourselves up for a big game against Fulham.

“This is football. When you look at how much we generated in the game, to see the result is very disappointing. But they (West Ham) were better than us in both boxes.

“They had two shots – with the penalty, three. We had 30, I don’t know how many touches in the box, how many situations, how many opportunities to score and we haven’t done it.”

West Ham coach, David Moyes expressed his delight after finally ending his poor away records against Arsenal.

Moyes said: “What about 2023 for us as a club? It’s been fantastic, and thankfully we’ve finished it off in great fashion today.”

“We’ve lost a couple of games conceding five in recent weeks, which I’ve hated. I try not to get my teams to do that, but tonight we’ve defended really well. 

“We had two different centre-halves tonight, we lost Lucas Pacqueta [during the first half], after he picked up an injury in the warm-up, So there were lots of things going against us, but I have to say it was a brilliant resolute performance.”

“They did everything together, they worked so hard together and we could have even got another right at the end there from the penalty.”

Arsenal fans have also expressed their frustration on social media after missing out on the opportunity to go top of the Premier League table.

A fan wrote on X: “Arsenal back to bottling again. This is why you will never win the Champions League.”

Tim Churchill wrote on X: “This was nothing short of an embarrassment”.

Another fan wrote on X: “Nice being top, an era has come to an end”.

The Gunners are two points behind table toppers Liverpool after 19 games.