Arsenal came back from a goal down to defeat their London rival West Ham 3-1. Arsenal has a good record away at West Ham and that trend continued last night as Wenger’s boys took all 3 points. West Ham took the lead against the run of play when Mohamed Diame beat Vito Mannone with a curling shot. Olivier Giroud scored his first Premier League goal for Arsenal as they equalised before the break when he poked in Lukas Podolski’s cross at the near post. Kevin Nolan missed two chances for the hosts and was made to pay when Theo Walcott came off the bench to make it 2-1 with Santi Cazorla hitting a third. Walcott, who replaced the disappointing Gervinho, helped the Gunners take advantage in the last half hour as West Ham tired.
But having been on top for large parts of the game, it was no more than Arsene Wenger’s team deserved as they extended their unbeaten record against the Hammers to nine games and moved to fifth in the Premier League table. As Arsenal began to assert their authority on the game, Walcott latched onto Giroud’s through ball just 16 minutes after coming on to score his fourth goal of the season with a precise near-post shot. Another chance fell to Nolan, but he fired over from the edge of the penalty box, and that miss proved costly once Cazorla smashed in Arsenal’s third from 20 yards to cap a superb individual performance.
That was an awesome attacking game to watch after a wonderful day.