- WHU have taken a realistic view of their position, and it wiill keep them in the League. Just.
- Arsenal v West Ham: What do the stats show that the referee likely to do?
- Arsenal v West Ham: recent games, performanecs and a naff away record
By Bulldog Drummond
With five injuries at present Arsenal have slipped down the injury league table with only Palace, Fulhm Leicester, Liverpool, Newcastle and Forest having fewer players out. Top of the injury tree are Manchester United with 11 players missing and then Chelsea, Everton, Ipswich, Tottenham and Wolverhampton on nine. At the other end of the scale, Palace, Leicester, Liverpool and Newcastle each have three men out.
The first return date we have is Saka for 15 March. We don’t know yet about Martinelli, but the other players won’t be back until next season, meaning that Jesus, Tomiyasu and Havertz will all miss the rest of the season.
Back with West Ham, so wretched has been their season, that they only had one tiny period in which they could be said to be even half way decent. This was in December when they beat Wolverhampton and Southampton, and also drew with Bournemouth and Brighton. And the point about Wolverhampton and Southampton is that each of those teams were beaten by only one goal, while they were both lingering very near the foot of the table.
West Ham’s defence is particularly poor – the fifth worst in the league with only Wolverhampton, Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton performing worse this season.
But there is another issue besetting West Ham and that was revealed in a piece in the Daily Express – not a paper that we normally take into account but we are always willing to make an exception. In this story the newspaper (I use the word lightly) ran the headline “Premier League side loses 29,000 season ticket holders as fans refuse to return”.
The story is, as ever with an Express headline, not quite what you might think, but it does suggest that WHAM have lost that many season ticket holders since the early years after moving from Upton Park. The piece then goes on to say that “fans have since complained about a lack of atmosphere inside the stadium,” which is a bit odd, since the atmosphere is by and large created by the fans.
Now this is also rather strange since the capacity of Upon Park was 35,000, but the story appears to work like this. 50,000 of the tickets for the first season at the “London” stadium were sold as season tickets. But since then 29,000 of that group (ie 58%) have not renewed.
They go on to tell us that in 2018 only 87% of their fans renewed, and in 2021 only 88% of those remaining renewed. This meant that in 2024, West Ham had 48,500 season ticket holders as opposed to 55,000 when they first moved. Which means by that calculation they have actually only lost 12%. Apparently, the removal of concessions was one of the factors to blame.55,000 to turn up week on week to watch a poorly performing club is pushing one’s luck.
But it is possible that an even bigger cause of their problems however is not that hard to spot. West Ham have never had a mass appeal, and thus expecting vast numbers of new fans to turn up was pushing it a bit. From 2019/20 onwards they have ended up 16th, 6th, 7th, 14th, 9th – which is erratic to say the best, and certainly not growth. They made the quarter-finals of the FA Cup once, but have otherwise gone out in earlier rounds in both of the domestic cup series.
Their goal scoring has also been something that can best be described as “modest” ranging from 41 up to 62, and most of the seasons have ended with a negative goal difference. True Jarrod Bowen did get 20 goals last campaign but overall it is 49 goals in 180 games and he has only got six goals in the league this season.
The Standard give us a team of
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Nwaneri, Trossard, Sterling
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Nwaneri, Merino, Trossard.
And that really covers most of the variations. We’re off to watch the game later, so there will be more tomorrow..
What a massive disappointment, but we were terrible and got what we deserved, absolutely nothing.
Plenty of aimless possession which mainly went nowhere and I do not remember a single shot on target all game. What shots we did have mostly avoided the goal by a large margin.
Schoolboy defending for the West Ham with Bowen totally unmarked a couple of meters from the goal. Basically a free gift of a goal.
Add in the MLS red card and it’s a day to forget.
I think that makes it three times where we have failed to capitalize on a Liverpool slip up.
MLS is learning and hopefully will not try to take on a player when he is the last man. But as a learned midfielder you can make such mistakes when you are 18. No complaints from me for the red card in this case.
Once again we see the result of injuries. Whether Arsenal have more or less than other teams is not as impactful as who the players are in the squad. They lost the starting three upfront. Also the backup striker and a starting fullback. Four starters and a primary backup. What other team in the league have five starters out? Maybe ManU. However, Arsenal is battling for the title and UCL.
WHU marked Nwaneri with two the entire he was on the pitch. That took care of the front line except for two attempts by Trossard. WHU and Leicester City before that set up well defensively and maintained their shape, not concerned by Arsenal’s attack. The midfield is not scoring this season as well. The back four and the keeper have been really stout the entire season. And were today except for the lapse leading to the goal. Great to see Ben White again. He really put his foot into one, didn’t he?
Walter, I cannot disagree with your view about the red card, especially as I haven’t seen the incident.
However, I understand that it was actually in the West Ham half and I can’t help thinking that this was another “letter of the law” case, that only arises for Arsenal players. I cannot recall any other teams’ players being given red cards in such situation. Also, I cannot help thinking that the PGMOL would have been looking for an opportunity for revenge against MLS, after the Oliver fiasco in the Wolves fixture, especially as VAR persuaded the ref to alter his original decision to award a yellow.
In addition, I believe that recent fairly obvious red card offences by Van Dyck and Konate have been ignored by referees, with no VAR intervention.
Once Pawson went to the screen it was always going to be red and the only defence was that it was so far out . The fact that Raya was in no mans land as well didn’t help and had MLS not pulled him down all Kudos would have had to do was walk the ball to the net . So no complaints , he took it for the team.
However we were not at the races today , I thought of the two matches this week that we were more likely to get something from this but Wednesday is most important now . Totally critical to the finish of this season.
I am still convinced that this strict interpretation of the rules is applied to Arsenal and not to others.
I’m not so sure that Lewis-Skelly did deserve that red card. Had the referee or VAR been doing its job, Kudus would have been punished for elbowing Lewis-Skelly in the head, which caused Miles to fall to the ground.
Dermot Gallagher’s RefWatch today followed the usual “back up the decision” narrative, with no mention made of the Kudus elbow.
I’d love the hear the replay of the VAR audio from this, but Webb is probably wiping the tapes as I speak.
The MLS incident is another where VAR only looks at the effect and not the cause. The whole situation arises because Kudos comes in from around the side and tries to reach the ball which importantly he doesn’t. Looking up the rules I gather if he had have made contact with the ball then his type of challenge is allowed as opposed to tackling from behind which is outlawed altogether. We can only assume then that either A: the ref thought he touched the ball B: The ref saw the foul on MLS but ignored it or… C: The ref doesn’t know the rules. There is zero doubt that the subsequent incident where MLS being entangled mistakenly decides to take matters into his own hands and haul dwon Kudos. VAR were probably only intsructed to look at MLS part of the incident and as such though that Kudos was prime Messi and would have the ability to lob Raya from the half way line – make of that what you will. With hindsight no doubt MLS will regret his actions – he shouldn’t have reacted and force the ref into giving him the foul and watch as Kudos lumped a volley into row Z.