THAT IS THE WORST WE HAVE PLAYED THIS SEASON! | West Ham 3-1 Arsenal Reaction

Our worst performance of the season? Easily, easily, easily. As you can see above my head, West Ham 3, Arsenal 1, a four-goal thriller. You know, definitely weren't thrilling where we were concerned, people. Halloween was yesterday. If Arsenal wanted to give us a fright, why wait till now? West Ham 3, Arsenal 1. We kick off November in terrible fashion. All we can do is move on, really and truly. Everything went wrong. There's no positives, you know. The only positive would be Odegaard, who's been missing for a couple of weeks, got a goal. Now, first things first, you've got to be gracious to the opponent. They did everything we didn't. Clearly, they listened to their manager. They wanted it a lot more. They managed the second half when the game got a bit open and ferocious. They did that. They were more clinical. They stopped us playing our game in every aspect. West Ham deserve it to be so big up David Moyes. I hope you lot go out and win the trophy, so at least we can say on a shameless one that we lost to the winners of the competition. I know a lot of Arsenal fans, the group chats are crazy. My Chelsea support and friends are calling me because they beat Blackburn. I know United and Arsenal fans, it's two homeless men fighting essentially because both teams went out in disgraceful fashion for the clubs. It is what it is, yeah. We can sit here and some fans can say, oh, we're targeting other trophies and all of that. Great, but it's never nice to go out of a cup. How many footballers actually go on and win trophies? The number of active footballers to those that actually attain silverware, how many is there? Losing is never acceptable. No one ever wants to lose, but it's a necessity, apologies, in life to lose games. But if we lost 3-0 or 3-1 and West Ham were amazing and you know what, it is what it is. There's nothing more we could do. Fair enough. Take nothing away from West Ham. We also defeated ourselves today. The first half, don't know what we're on really. Fair enough, the set piece. It can happen with Benjamin White. Ramsdale might be being pulled personally. I think both two players could do better. I'm actually more annoyed in Zinchenko. Gabriel's had to concede the corner because Zinchenko's gone to sleep. You know, at that point, West Ham don't have a shot on target. It's the same old, same old. You know, we made a lot of changes. I did think in some parts of the first half we was playing okay, but made a lot of changes. No players are really looking lively per se. I thought Jorginho looked good into the second half. I think Kyrgios looked all right. I think Trossart looked all right. I think Nelson looked all right. The bar is on the floor for Kai Havertz and the bar is on the floor if you're finding positives when you lose 3-1. But Kai Havertz looked a lot better than a lot of his teammates. The first time I've looked at Kai Havertz, I thought, yo, you're actually looking all right. You know, first off, you know, at 1-0, you thought, yeah, we might be able to get something. We are, we're not, we're not banging on the door. We've had some half chances, but we're failing to hit the target. But it does feel, pardon me, like the game's somewhat in the balance, essentially. Second half horrible. And I think Mikel Arteta has to take responsibility for halftime. I don't think he made the players go out there in the second half and play the way they did. It was absolutely terrible. You know, before West Ham got the second and third goals, literally 30, 45 seconds into that second half, West Ham had the bit between their teeth. They warned us. They had a close effort, really. So I think at halftime, Tommy Assu needed to come on. That's the one. You know, Declan Rice maybe for Jorginho. I'm not going to lie. I said on my watch along, you know, Jorginho was more of a first five, 10 minutes in the second half. Let's see where he's going and when he gets tired and then bring on Declan Rice. I think Tommy Assu needed to be the one to start and needed to be the one to play. I'm past the point of being angry at Zinchenko. I like him. I don't advocate scapegoating of any player. We win, lose and draw together. But any time he has to defend, we're in problems. The second goal, the momentum has shifted in it, you know. Again, Zinchenko. I'm actually not that angry at Zinchenko for the second goal because it's a lovely pass and that's the one time Zinchenko's spot on, you know. It's a lovely pass from the centre-back for West Ham. Kudus has cut him open. Yes, across all aspects, we could have done better. Zinchenko, you know, blocking the short. We're allowing them to build out from the back. If we scored that goal, we'd be waffling all night about that. It was a sexy pass from the centre-back of West Ham. So on one hand, with my neutral hat, I had to admire it. On the second Arsenal hat, it's appalling. The third goal, again, the transitions were looking very poorly, you know. It's not just him, but Benjamin White's header. It's fallen to the path of Bowen. Only Declan Rice is trying to somewhat close it down. It has taken a slight deflection of Kyrgios, but fundamentally we've gone out. We should have had the bit between our teeth a bit more. And considering generally we've been better away from home versus the Emirates this season, it's terrible, really, you know. Again, that is our worst performance of the season. I know I said that in the aftermath when we lost to Lens away from home. I definitely think the first half against Chelsea, first 45 minutes, maybe 60-odd minutes, 70-odd minutes until we got the first goals up there. It's horrible, really. I think Zinchenko, yeah, the defensive things are one thing, but the passing was horrible. For someone that cool, you're not switched on defensively, but, you know, you're a crisp sort of footballer. You've got footballing IQ. You're a good passer. It was horrible, really. And I think, you know, it's the same old case of, you know, even though Eddie Nketi was poor, everyone was poor. I'm not, you know, it doesn't matter if two players were good and 10 players were bad, but Eddie Nketi is having to drop too deep. Chossak's basically picking up the ball as a left-back, you know, and they're doubling up against him. They're aggressive with their press. They're making it very difficult for us and we're playing into their hands. I did think, you know, at halftime we needed to get service to those players. We need to work Fabianski. We need to up the tempo and just have a lot more quality, really. And we're not taking the half chances. At halftime, they're winning 1-0. They had 31% of the ball, no shots, none on target, and two corners, but they took their chances. Compare that to at the time, our eight shots, one on target, 69% of the ball, 302 passes to their 143. And so, yeah, I think our play was lacking invention. It was lacking intention. It was very predictable. You know, we can't, we only really play one way. And West Ham knew this. They did their homework. They were aggressive when they needed to be. They doubled up when they needed to be. They took advantage of the errors we made when they needed to be. They didn't allow us to have any openings. Obviously, when Odegaard came on, he kind of bagged. And I think the subs, you know, probably the men of the match because they did the basic competencies that required people, that were required. As I said, second half, West Ham warned us about what they were on and we didn't take heed of it. As you know, 2-0 is a dangerous scoreline. You get 2-1, it's a bit of optimism. By then, they've got the furthest past the pad settings. And I'm happy we did it because you lot would have heard me on my watch along saying, listen, just mash up the clean sheet. Just mash up the clean sheet. So at least the analytical team and David Moyes have something to think about. You know, I think Mikel Arteta, all right, was always going to rotate the team. But I think he has to take responsibility for the subs. And I think he has to take responsibility for the, you know, simply put, for the subs. The second half is on Arteta as much as the players. Players, I don't know what he was on, really and truly. I really don't. There was no fight. There was no desire. There was no nothing. You know, big up Odegaard for scoring and technically Fabio Vieira for getting an assist. So Arteta can sit there and point towards, yeah, that's why he stayed on the pitch. I don't know how Fabio Vieira was on the pitch that long, really. It was shades of Eric Ten Hag keeping Rashford on in the Manchester derby as long as he did really and truly. You know, again, it was horrible. It's just far too easy for West Ham. Credit to them because they did everything that we didn't, really. Ultimately, football's decided in both boxes. We didn't take our chances or really create anything of note in the final third. We didn't defend like our lives depended on it. Second half, we didn't win. You know, I know I said it's decided by both boxes, but typically it's played in the middle of the park. We didn't win our collective or individual battles in the midfield or anywhere over that football pitch, really, people. And I think certain players shows why they don't play today. I think if anyone's head's in the skies because we're unbeaten in the Premier League and we had a fantastic game against Sheffield United, if anyone thinks we've achieved anything or their levels, they need to wake the F up immediately. You know, all we can do is lick our wounds and heed our warnings because a result like this has been coming for a couple of seasons, even in games we've won, if I'm completely honest with you. So, yeah, I think Odegaard needed to come on a lot sooner. I think Declan Rice needed to come on a lot sooner. I think Tom Iassu was the one at half-time. I was always begging Mikel Arteta to make, really, because maybe things could have been prevented. But it is what it is, people. And then the second half, it just shows that, you know, they're a street-smart team based on that 90 minutes. And we've done well. Wait, we had 14 shots free on target. Horrible stats. They had five shots free on target and scored three goals. 72% of the possession to 28%. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, but it's what you do with it. And there was no intention, invention or any sort of mandate when we were on the ball. We didn't look like we knew what we were trying to do, really. We had six corners. They had four. And then, ultimately, we didn't make it count. And when the game got a bit more open and there was a fight, you know, there has been a lot more courage in this Arsenal team this season. That second half, when it was open and, you know, it became probably an entertaining game for the neutrals, it deserted us, really. We deserve to lose. All we can do is lick our wounds and go again. I don't think the players need a recovery session tomorrow because, you know, didn't exert too much energy today. So we need to get into more early. If Arteta is there at 6, 7am, like it said in the All or Nothing documentary, you might need to be there at 5am, really. You lot need to do serious push-ups and circuits and things like that. You lot can't be tired. All we can do is move on to West Ham. I mean, to Newcastle. So we definitely happen to not play West Ham. All we can do is move on. And the most disappointing thing now is, obviously, when you see the news around Gabriel Jesus' injury, Thomas Pate's injury, and Smith-Rowe's picked up a knee knock, and Mikel Arteta has said it's a big injury, allegedly. We can't afford any more injuries. But, yeah, it just shows... Today shows the evident limitation on certain individuals. It just shows that we don't really... We've got an improved squad. We don't necessarily have a squad that's levels to compete. And it just shows, as good as West Ham were or weren't, that whatever you lot believe, you take it up with yourselves. We defeat ourselves a lot. We have this element of self-capitulation and shooting ourselves in the foot. Take heed in that, fair enough, this has nothing to do with the Premier League. If you behave like this against Newcastle United, you can forget about 3-1. You will hold a cricket score. So, yeah, people, smash the like button. Let me know your thoughts. Again, football's a crazy game. You could be riding the highs of defeating Sheffield United and hitting them for how many goals and then West Ham United deal with you. So, yeah, we need to get on with it against Newcastle. It's a crap way to start the month. But, you know, all we have to do is just... All we can do in this life is look forward and hopefully we can do what needs to be done in the next few games to come. Let me know your thoughts. Comment, like, subscribe and all that good stuff. One love.