Following Arsenal’s 5-2 thrashing of West Ham, Bukayo Saka issued a warning to the club’s championship opponents, saying that Arsenal are “back to our best.”
In a wild first half that witnessed seven goals before halftime for only the fourth occasion in Premier League history, the winger scored from the penalty spot and assisted on three more.
After suffering through a losing streak of just two wins in their previous seven games, Arsenal have bounced back with three wins in a row, including a 5-0 Champions League victory over Sporting Lisbon.”Indeed, we have been playing at a high level, returning to our optimal performance,” Saka stated of the team’s performance in the past three games. Everything appears to be in order; we’re lively, fluid, and our movements and rotations are clearly visible. We know that three solid games isn’t going to cut it in this league, so we must keep up this performance.
Mikel Arteta, Arsenal’s manager, claimed that his team can now relax and enjoy Sunday’s Premier League title match between Liverpool and Manchester City after their victory propelled them to second place.
“We have some momentum, we have some flow back and a real determination,” Arteta stated. The past three victories are fantastic. Tomorrow, we will witness a breathtaking football match, and tonight, we will relax and enjoy ourselves.‘Arteta remarked, “The first half was crazy.” His team had jumped out to a 4-0 lead after 34 minutes, but West Ham scored twice in a row to cut the deficit to four goals. Saka scored the fifth goal just before halftime. “The first half was absolutely out of this world. You could tell the team was really into it.”
Arsenal became just the third English top-flight club in a calendar year to score five goals in five separate away games, after Sunderland in 1892 and Manchester City in 1937. They came off a thunderous 5-1 Champions League win against Sporting Lisbon in midweek.
Meanwhile, following Monday night’s shocking victory over Newcastle, West Ham came crashing back down to earth.
From the director’s box, manager Julen Lopetegui, who was under pressure, observed the match and felt that Gabriel, who scored Arsenal’s first goal off a corner, should have had it disallowed for a push on Lucas Paqueta near the near post. Lopetegui served his touchline ban.
The decision to give Arsenal their second penalty, for the headbutt by goalie Lukas Fabianski on Gabriel, was another one he questioned.
Lopetegui expressed his overwhelming frustration. Playing at home against arguably the world’s top team doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to perform better.
It was an incredibly peculiar first half. Neither of our goals was deserving, and neither was theirs. The first one was a set piece that we had planned, but it was obviously a foul in my view. In my view, we need to review the regulations about this, even if it’s not a foul.
Then we need to improve on our performance for the second and third objectives. Just before halftime, the match was ended by a fifth goal.
I didn’t see it as a penalty. Look at the collision between Gabriel and Lukas (Fabianski) for the first goal on Paqueta.
The choice was unfortunate for us. We are capable of better, thus this is not an excuse.