On the Whistle: West Ham 3-1 Arsenal - "A really bad night"

When I speak to people who watch these videos and enjoy them, something they often say is I really like how you're able to find the positivity. I think I'm going to struggle to do that after tonight. West Ham United 3 Arsenal 0 in the Carabao Cup. I guess the positivity is going to be a lighter fixture schedule moving forward because Arsenal are very much out of the Carabao Cup. I think we can say we crashed out of it. I think that's what the terminology football cliches would approve of. Really disappointing performance and a bad result. Let's be clear about that. A bad result. What I was watching and thinking was would you ever see Man City beat like this? I've seen Liverpool teams go out of domestic cups when they've played schoolboys practically. Guys making their debuts. I've seen Man City around this competition but have I seen them go out quite like that, quite as emphatically? I'm not sure. I think any time you lose 3-0 it's really bad. It's bad for the club. It's ugly. I do think it's a result that may be forgotten about if we win at St James' Park on Saturday. But if we don't, people will say negative momentum. Did confidence take a dent? We weren't astronomically bad. We weren't awful. It wasn't 3-0 was it? It was 3-1. I just remembered there was a goal in stoppage time. There was going to be about 100 comments underneath saying 3-1. It felt like a 3-0. What I was going to say was we weren't 3-0 bad. Maybe 3-1 was a more fair result in the end. I think West Ham scored with three shots on target. Maybe had another shot that Ramsdale saved. The one on one I think it was Boney who went through. But we were really punished for our defensive sloppiness. But we were sloppy defensively. And while we weren't diabolical, we weren't good either. We didn't do enough. We didn't create enough. Particularly in the first half we would get to the edge of the box and then not quite find the final pass, the final combination. The one time we did do that, we scored. The problem was it came in the 95th minute. It was actually a really nice goal. A little touch from Fabio Vieira. Odegaard who's come off the bench takes it through and scores. But yeah, a bad night all round. It was a strong 11 I thought. You know, heavily rotated, yes. But oh, Newcastle have just gone 3-0 up at Old Trafford. Listen, if there's one thing that's going to cheer me up or at least soften the blow, it's that. I think Joe Willock scored as well. Good on him. As bad as we might have been tonight, United are definitely worse. Yeah, I thought it was a strong 11. You know, quite a lot of those players could play at St James' Park. You'd think White, you'd think Gabriel, you'd think Nketiah, you'd think maybe Havertz or Jorginho's got a chance. It wasn't 11 changes, you know, five or six changes. And some of the players coming in, we rate. You know, they were part of the first team group last season. Someone like Aaron Ramsdale, Leo Trossard has played a lot of minutes for us since January. You know, we spent £65 million on Kai Havertz, £35 million on Fabio Vieira. It was a decent 11. West Ham went strong. I think as the game wore on, it began to feel like it meant more for them and meant more to them than it did for us. I don't think Michael Artek will feel great about that because for a lot of players, this is their chance. You know, this is their opportunity to play. He guarded against complacency very carefully in the build-up to the Sheffield United game. He made a big play about that in his press conference saying, you know, I made a big speech. I told them, you know, you need to be on your guard. We've had big games against Man City. We've had a big game against Sevilla. You can't let it drop just because it's a home game against Sheffield United. And the players, he did that. They won 5-0, but they let it drop tonight. And look, maybe no one's too cut up about that. Maybe people are happy to be out of the Carabao Cup. Maybe on some level, Mikhail Teta is happy to be out of the Carabao Cup. I don't believe that personally. I think he knows the value of winning trophies, winning silverware, what it can do for a group, what it can do for him as a manager, for his reputation, for his standing with the club and beyond. Look how seriously the likes of Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho have taken this competition, how they've used it as a stepping stone to bigger and better things. I think Artek would view it in the same way and would have regarded it as winnable. So I think he'll be really disappointed to be out. I think the players get a rollicking off the manager at full time, I imagine. I've not seen his press conferences yet, but I don't think he'll hold back. He brought on some of the big stars, Sacco, Martinelli and Odegaard. I know it got us a goal through Odegaard. I have to say, I wasn't sure about that. At 3-0 down, 20 minutes to go, 25 maybe, I sort of thought it was game over. And I think that there was more to be lost than to be gained at that point in time. I probably would have just kept them fresh for Saturday, especially in the case of Odegaard, who we were told at the weekend has been carrying a hip problem. Nice to see him back on the score sheet. But let's talk about the goals. As I say, we were really punished for defensive errors. Funny thing about this guy, right? Is it a foul on Aaron Ramsdale? Almost certainly, Thomas Suchek appears to be holding him. But the funny thing is, even though Ramsdale is being held, I think he gets to that ball if Ben White doesn't hit it into his own net. I think when you watch it, he's heading towards it. I think he's going to get there. I think he's going to punch it clear and then Ben White flicks it on. Now, what do we blame for that? It's got to be miscommunication. Quite surprising between White and Ramsdale because they're close, they've got a good bond and a good connection on the field. Again, maybe it's just that thing, not having minutes together. You mix it up and you suffer for it. Second goal, I think really poor from an Arsenal perspective. I thought Zinchenko was going to play tonight. He did indeed because I think what that tells you is he's not going to play at Newcastle. I think I think if Tommy Astley is playing left-back at this point in the game, we probably don't concede this goal. It's a long, high ball. Zinchenko can't cut it out. Gabriel stands off way too much. Kudas seems to have all the time in the world to bring it down and finish. And then the third goal, shot from the edge of the box from Bowen, deflects off Jakob Kivijor. By the way, we didn't learn, I spoke about on the Arsecast Extra, Nottingham Forest made the cardinal sin of playing two left-footed centre-backs. It's a golden rule in football, it never works and Arsenal tried it tonight, it did not work. The ball deflected off Jakob Kivijor's thigh and now Ramsdale could only palm it into the net. I have to say I think slippery conditions, it was a deflection but I still think Ramsdale will feel he should have saved that. It was close to his body and I think he would have wanted to do better there. So, disappointing for him on his first run out for a while really since the Brentford game. And with Arsenal being out of this competition, you do slightly fear for when his next game is going to come. What else to say? Not a lot really, not a lot. I've given it eight minutes, surprised I got that much out of it. I'm disappointed. Listen, I want to see Arsenal win this competition. It's been a long time, it's been a long, long time. Early 90s we're talking, 30 years really over. I think I'm right in saying mid-90s maybe. And I think there is value in it, I honestly do. I think, what's that saying, a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. I think it's all very well saying we're all about the league, we're all about the Champions League but when it gets to the end of the season, if you haven't won those prizes, you do reflect on the competitions that maybe had a more straightforward path to success. The domestic cups, I think have been very good to us in recent years. They've made successes out of seasons that might not otherwise have been. And I think you turn your nose up at them at your peril. I don't think Arteta did tonight, I think he picked a team that was more than good enough to win and I just don't think we were good enough. I think we've made errors at the back, West Ham punished us and we didn't create enough going forward. That's not a good recipe to win football matches. It'll probably be forgotten if we win at St James' Park but I'd rather be Newcastle, who are currently 3-0 up at Old Trafford with 25 minutes to play, than us right now, who lost 3-1 or as I keep calling it 3-0. I'll leave it there. Let's hope for a more cheerful video on Saturday.