Arsenal traveled to fellow London team West Ham United’s Upton Park, where Alexandre Song, who played for Arsenal for seven years and is currently on loan to West Ham from Barcelona, faced his former team.
West Ham looked to go ahead early as the fifth minute, when Song’s volley made its way past a crowd of players and past goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny into the net. The goal, however, was disallowed because two players were offside. Later in the half, Winston Ried brought down Santi Cazorla just inside the penalty area and the penalty was awarded. Cazorla took the penalty and put the ball into the corner, sending goalkeeper Adrian del Castillo the wrong way.
Just four minutes later, Alex Oxalade-Chamberlain‘s low cross across the face of the goal was met by Danny Welbeck and Arsenal’s lead was doubled.
West Ham came out fighting in the second half and were able to pull a goal back in the 54th minute. James Tomkins made an impressive run and was able to get a cross to Cheikhou Kouyate as his header took a deflection off Mathieu Debuchy and into the net.
West Ham pushed to get the equalizer and looked dominant on the pitch. Meanwhile, Arsenal were satisfied playing a counter-attacking strategy. Both keepers played well for their teams, and it was Arsenal who spent the last 25 minutes of the match desperately trying to hold on to their lead. Enner Valencia, Diafra Sakho and James Tomkins all came close to leveling the score for West Ham.
In the end, Arsenal were able to walk away with all three points. With the win, they were able to take 5th place from West Ham, who dropped to 6th. Arsenal are now undefeated in their last five games in all competitions and are enjoying a nice bounce-back after some negative talk about the team and Arsene Wenger.
(Feature image: Julian Finney/Getty Images)
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