Arsenal vs West Ham LIVE: Premier League result, final score and reaction tonight
Follow all the reaction from the Emirates Stadium after the Gunners saw off West Ham
Gabriel Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe fired Arsenal to a 2-0 victory over West Ham and into the top four of the Premier League.
Brazilian forward Martinelli, profiting from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s enforced absence from the squad with a rare run in the Gunners starting line-up, tucked in his second goal of the season early in the second half.
And substitute Smith Rowe doubled the lead late on after Alexandre Lacazette had missed a penalty.
It was enough to inflict defeat on an increasingly weary-looking West Ham side, whose own charge for a Champions League spot has slowed to a crawl in recent weeks.
To add to their problems they were reduced to 10 men when Vladimir Coufal was sent off for bringing down Lacazette, who saw his subsequent penalty saved by Lukasz Fabianski.
Arsenal vs West Ham: West Ham in London derbies
The Hammers are unbeaten in their last eight midweek league games and they can win three consecutive league London derbies for the first time since January 2019, when the third contest came against Arsenal.
Arsenal vs West Ham: Wednesday night joy for Arsenal
Arsenal have lost just two of their 36 Premier League home matches played on a Wednesday but one of those defeats was against West Ham in February 2006.
The Gunners have lost two of their four Premier League London derbies this season - with one win and one draw - having been defeated in just one London derby in total last season.
Arsenal vs West Ham: Highs for the Hammers
West Ham have recorded one win in five Premier League fixtures following a run of four straight victories. However, they have equalled their highest points tally of 28 after 16 matches of a Premier League season.
Arsenal vs West Ham: Gunners strong at Emirates
Arsenal are undefeated in seven home league matches, winning the last four in a row. They have never won five in a row at the Emirates under manager Mikel Arteta.
If they keep a clean sheet tonight the Gunners would win four successive league games at the Emirates without conceding for the first time since May 2017. The fourth victory in that sequence came against David Moyes’ Sunderland.
Arsenal vs West Ham: Thierry Henry claims ‘something is not right’ over Mikel Arteta treatment of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Arsenal legend Thierry Henry claims there is ‘something not right’ about manager Mikel Arteta’s treatment of captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after the striker was substituted during their 3-2 defeat to Manchester United.
With the visitors needing a goal to level things up at Old Trafford on Thursday night, the Gabon international was taken off by Arteta in the 79th minute and replaced by Alexandre Lacazette.
And Henry, who was on punditry duties at the game, could not make sense of the decision during his post-match analysis.
Thierry Henry questions Mikel Arteta’s treatment of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Aubameyang was hooked by Arteta in the 79th minute of their 3-2 defeat to Man Utd on Thursday night
Arsenal vs West Ham: Team changes
Mikel Arteta names an unchanged team to the one that started against Southampton at the weekend. Gabriel Martinelli and Alexandre Lacazette lead the line with Emile Smith Rowe starting on the bench.
David Moyes meanwhile makes just one change to the West Ham starting XI. Pablo Fornals returns as Said Benrahma drops to the bench.
Arsenal vs West Ham: Line-ups
Arsenal XI: Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Partey, Xhaka, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Lacazette
West Ham XI: Fabianski, Coufal, Dawson, Diop, Masuaku, Rice, Soucek, Fornals, Lanzini, Bowen, Antonio
Arsenal vs West Ham: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is fighting a losing battle with Mikel Arteta
When Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang traipsed on for the final five minutes against Everton, with the frown of a man parachuted barefoot into a field of thorns, it didn’t require any great oracle to decipher what would happen next. And so, when Mikel Arteta ceremonially kicked off Arsenal’s weekend by publicly ostracising his captain for a “disciplinary breach”, any semblance of shock was at best subdued.
After all, there has always been something of a doomed cycle between Arteta and Aubameyang: a friction that grates during periods of bad form and culminates in one of Arteta’s schoolmasterish citations. It played out to a familiar tune in March, when Aubameyang was dropped for the North London derby, and it kept to much the same rhythm this weekend as Arsenal coasted past Southampton.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is fighting a losing battle with Mikel Arteta
The captain was dropped after a ‘disciplinary breach’ – but it can’t be said that Arsenal missed him
Arsenal vs West Ham: Aubameyang stripped of captaincy
Mikel Arteta says he stripped Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang of the Arsenal captaincy to ‘defend the interests’ of the club. The Gunners released a statement earlier this week announcing that Aubameyang, 32, had been removed as captain following his latest disciplinary breach.
The statement also said Aubameyang will not be considered for Wednesday’s game against West Ham.
“We have made this decision that unfortunately is a really tough one,” said Arteta. “If I had to choose I wouldn’t like to be sitting here talking about it, but we had to do it.
“When we have to make that decision, it’s because it’s the right one to defend the interests of the football club.”
Arsenal vs West Ham: Head-to-head
Arsenal have won 10 of their last 11 home league games against West Ham and the Hammers have triumphed in just two of the last 28 meetings in all competitions.
West Ham’s tally of 32 Premier League defeats in this fixture is a club record against a single opponent.
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