West Ham 1-5 Arsenal: Three things we learnt

By Sam Leveridge

West Ham had not beaten the Gunners at home in over 10 years when Arsene Wenger’s side arrived to the London Stadium on Saturday evening, and had only won in their own ground against them three times over the past 30 years, but Slaven Bilic’s side recorded their worst ever home defeat with this 5-1 defeat.

Injury to James Collins was a bad start for Bilic, requiring a rejig of the defence and formation, but it didn’t take Alexis Sanchez long to pounce on a defensive error by Angelo Ogbonna to unselfishly set up Mesut Ozil to open the scoring. West Ham looked to have given up already by that point, but they were not out of the game until Sanchez added a second with a fine finish.

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Sanchez added another with yet another brilliant finish before Dimitri Payet’s freekick, as so often is the case, gave Irons fans some hope with Andy Carroll heading in from yards out to bring them back into the game with a consolation effort with little time left on the clock.

That joy was shortlived, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain adding a screamer of his own and Alexis Sanchez completing his hat-trick in magnificent style in injury time to seal an impressive victory for the Gooners.

Read on over the next few pages to see what we can learn from the game…