Loss Premier League: Arsenal 0 - 2 West Ham | Thursday 28th December| KO: 20:15 GMT | Prime Video

Prediction

Arsenal 3-0 West Ham

 

[Aussie_gunner123]

They should have lost by 5 goals at least never understand the opinion of this tbf they were lucky to.

Without a doubt if they defended with a higher line it would have been a completely different result. I think it shows they are to scared to defend with a higher line.

 

[lomekian]

All league games lost this season we have failed to score...not good sign

One could look at it the other way, we only lose when we fail to score... ;-)

 

[Gooner Zig]

30 shots with an xG of only 2.7 means most of those shots were low chances of scoring. That’s good defending.

Yes and no, imo. Good defending also involves shot suppression. They conceded 30 shots and 77 touches inside their box, I think it's fair to say West Ham defended well but they were also extremely fortunate to not concede.

 

[A_G]

Charity. FC. @El Duderino

 

[Oxeki]

West Ham played incredibly well. One of the reasons our xG was so low with 30 shots, is that it takes into account defenders in between the shooter and the goal. Ødegaard and Saka were in their box multiple times but they were always doubling up on them, and for all their twisting and turning, they couldn’t release a killer shot or pass. Could have been an extra half hour and the result would have been the same.

Yeah they played well. Props to them.

Congested the space and limited our attacking options and made life difficult. Forced us to play the game on their terms. Started pumping balls into the box and they were bigger then us

 

[GoonerJeeves]

Charity. FC. @El Duderino

@Dokaka - your thoughts on that? I can see that it will not swing the romantics, but realistically, in terms of results, he's doing well?

 

[2Smokeyy]

Even De Zerbi is surprised look at his eyes as he realises West Ham is next for them.

 

[Andrew Cole Linighan]

It's not over yet. We did create a load of chances yesterday, West Ham defended well.
Watching Sky Sports News this morning, a Stat that amazed me. Our leading scorers have scored 5 goals, while Man City's has scored 14, and Liverpool 12.

 

[Andrew Cole Linighan]

@Dokaka - your thoughts on that? I can see that it will not swing the romantics, but realistically, in terms of results, he's doing well?

David Moyes has had 2 good spells managing West Ham Utd. Winning the Europa Conference Trophy last season, was a Brilliant achievement.
He did well when he was Everton's manager. Was there for about seven seasons. Brought in players like Tim Cahill.
The Man Utd job didn't work out for him. He has certainly built his stock back up.

 

[HollandGooner]

30 shots with an xG of only 2.7 means most of those shots were low chances of scoring. That’s good defending.

I agreed with the XG but still thought we had enough clear cut chances.

 

[Makingtrax]

Yes and no, imo. Good defending also involves shot suppression. They conceded 30 shots and 77 touches inside their box, I think it's fair to say West Ham defended well but they were also extremely fortunate to not concede.

West Ham defending so deep was definitely a game plan on their part. A fair % of our 30 shots were blocked. xG takes that into account ‘people in the way of shots’ and lowers it accordingly. That’s good defending. I guess the luck you’re talking about comes if the block isn’t clean and a deflection takes the ball past the keeper. Either way though it still means Arsenal aren’t carving out clear cut chances by making incisive passes through those defensive lines in key areas.

 

[Sanchez11]

People can say what they like. But its simple you dont lose to West Ham at home during a title fight!! Hes pissed me off tbh!!

 

[Makingtrax]

I agreed with the XG but still thought we had enough clear cut chances.

Saka had a couple of shots from the edge of the box where he cut inside to try to curl the ball into the keepers right hand top corner, but they were well wide. Salah scores like that that but Saka isn’t quite at that level yet to make a regular habit of it.

 

[Macho]

Even De Zerbi is surprised look at his eyes as he realises West Ham is next for them.

They need to investigate my man for betting cause he clearly put a fat wad on a routine Arsenal win at home.

His team proper gave him the "Mr President" whisper they do when somebody got shot.

 

[BigPoppaPump]

Charity. FC. @El Duderino

Interesting tweet from OptaJoe recently. Not sure if I should post it since it may be sh*t stirring/trolling.

 

[blaze_of_glory]

Saka had a couple of shots from the edge of the box where he cut inside to try to curl the ball into the keepers right hand top corner, but they were well wide. Salah scores like that that but Saka isn’t quite at that level yet to make a regular habit of it.

He also had a shot right at the keeper when Ode played him in early on, then hit the post from a similar position later. We definitely had good chances

 

[Sanchez11]

Our cf doesnt make the runs, simple as that.

 

[Vinci]

Interesting tweet from OptaJoe recently. Not sure if I should post it since it may be sh*t stirring/trolling.

If it's about Rice you can't, otherwise go ahead.

 

[Bagels]

Yeah, but hand on heart, do any of our attackers look confident in front of goal? Most chances were fluffed.

If you have a 2.68xG with 30 shots, it shows how poor your chances were. An xG can be 1 with only 1 shot if it's a tap in on the goal line. A higher xG doesn't mean you played well. Their xG was 1.5 with only 6 shots, so they carved out much better chances. They defended better and attacked better. All our great work had no end product at either end.

Appreciate the double reply to my single post

Fotmob had us with 5 big chances created and 5 big chances missed. Most of our 30 shots were not likely to be goals, but to say we didn’t have any clear chances isn’t true.

Regardless, unless my understanding of xG is totally wrong, the logic doesn’t hold. If you have a 1xG on 1 shot, or 1xG on 10 shots, the math works out that you’d on average have a goal based on the chances created in both cases. Saying “an xG of 2.68 over 30 shots means we created poorly” when an xG of 2.68 actually means we created enough that over a larger sample we would expect to have scored nearly 3 goals seems odd. Doesn’t matter if it’s 100 half chances or 3 golden ones. Creating fewer quality chances vs larger volume of lesser chances is irrelevant if they are generating the same xG, that’s kind of the point. It’s an absolute measure. The xG is the literal quantifier of the quality of chances created over a match.

Doing 0.5+0.5+0.5+0.5 has the same outcome as 1+1. One doesn’t suddenly become lesser than the other. Nvm 0.5x8 suddenly being treated as less than 1+1. Maybe I’ve totally missed something though….

EDIT: I saw you mentioned better quality chances since per chance they generated a higher xG. I see that’s a different thing from what I address, although not sure how it’s relevant when our xG was about double regardless (including their penalty, their xG “carved out for them” less than 1xG otherwise). I don’t love xG discussions, I just think that (and I apply this to ourselves) it’s difficult to say you defended well when you would be expected to have conceded nearly 3 goals. The stats suggest it’s more of a “you got away with it”, as repeat performances would have you leak goals. Even if the eye test shows differently. Many games where we have kept a clean sheet but conceded too many shots/chances and I felt we defended poorly. So it’s not an idea I am applying specifically to this match.

 

[TH14shahriar]

People can say what they like. But its simple you dont lose to West Ham at home during a title fight!! Hes pissed me off tbh!!

I'm with you brother