West Ham vs Arsenal. 24/02/96

West Ham (0) 0 - 1 (1) Arsenal

Upton Park, 24th Feb 96

Carling Premiership

Teams
Arsenal: Seaman, Dixon, Keown, Linighan, Morrow, Winterburn, Hillier, 
         Parlour, Merson, Bergkamp, Hartson
         Subs: Platt (Hillier h-t), Hughes, Rose

West Ham: Miklosko, Potts, Harkes, Rieper, Dicks, Hughes, Bishop,
          Williamson, Rowland, Cottee, Dowie
          Subs: Dani (Harkes 68), Whitbread, Sealey.

Result :  West Ham United      (0) 0   Arsenal                  1 (1)
Scorers:                               Hartson 2

Bookings:                              Hartson
      
Att     : 24217
Referee : D Elleray (Harrow on the Hill)

A 3rd successive away league win as Arsenal punctured the West Ham bubble constructed on the back of 5 successive league victories. However, this was a win which owed much to the virtues outsiders typically ascribe to the Gunners - a certain amount of luck, a dogged rearguard action, and most notably, a superb display of goalkeeping from David Seaman.

Bruce Rioch stuck to the formation and team (with the exception of the forced replacement of Wright with Hartson) which started the game against Villa in midweek, and Arsenal were given just the start they required with a goal after little more than a minute. Harkes tried to pass back to Potts just outside his own area, but left the ball woefully short. Merson nipped in, took the ball round Potts and into the left side of the area. As Miklosko left his line to meet him, Merse stabbed the ball back into the middle where Hartson was running in, and he had a simple job of sidefooting home from about 10 yards.

The young Welshman had an eventful first few minutes. He tried the ref's patience soon afterwards with a rash late lunge, and then almost immediately brought down Dicks with a tackle that was more clumsy than malicious, but still earned him a booking. However, that was the only time the ref took his cards out of his pocket as the rest of the match was pretty even tempered.

For the next 20-25 minutes the game was fairly evenly balanced. Bergkamp, Hartson and Merson combined well on occasion going forward, though I can't remember many specific incidents where there was much real threat on the West Ham goal. Bergkamp went close with one shot from just outside the area, and an unfortunate bobble deprived him of another half chance which ended horribly high and wide, much to the home crowd's delight. Hartson also missed another half chance, misheading a cross from the right following good work by Bergkamp and Dixon.

At the other end West Ham were generally pressing forward with ever increasing urgency and for the last 10 or 15 minutes of the half Arsenal were largely penned in their own half. A diagonal cross in from the right by Hughes took a wicked deflection off Morrow and was dipping into the far top corner, but Seaman readjusted brilliantly and arched to tip it over the bar.

The home crowd appealed vociferously for a goal soon afterwards when a speculative lob from the left by Rowland was caught comfortably by Seaman, but in so doing he stepped back over the goal line. He held the ball out in front of him, but for a horrible moment from behind the goal I thought it might have crossed the line, but fortunately the linesman decreed otherwise. Just before half time, Dowie had a decent chance running into the area on the right, but blazed well wide.

Platt came on at half time to replace Hillier, but if the intention was to aid Arsenal's attack, it was rendered fairly pointless because the second half was pretty much one way traffic as West Ham laid seige to the Arsenal goal. The red and white defence held out though, with some heroic defending backing up some great goalkeeping from Seaman, and aided by one or two misses.

Arsenal occasionally broke out of defence, but I can recall only one real chance in the second half. That was when some nice passing between, I think, Merson, Bergkamp and finally Platt, set up Hartson for a shot as he ran into the area on the right, but he shot a couple of yards wide of the near post.

At the other end Seaman did well to push a 20 yard piledriver from Williamson over the bar, before eventually the Hammer's fans' persistent appeals for a penalty were rewarded when Keown was judged to have impeded Cottee as a ball was played in to the striker from the right. Fairly dubious in my view, but perhaps not surprising given that the ref had already turned down at least two appeals for handball. Put a bit of a temporary dampener on some of the Gooners' delighted taunting of their opposite numbers by chanting "Handball, handball" at every opportunity.

Anyway, Dicks stepped up to take the spot kick, despite suffering from what he later claimed was double vision following an earlier collision with Parlour. He whacked it more or less down the middle but Seaman, diving to his left, saved brilliantly with his legs and then recovered to hold on to Harkes' followup shot.

Still West Ham pressed forward, getting ever closer to a goal. Keown made a couple of last ditch blocks, before a few minutes from time Dowie broke clear with only Seaman to beat. His shot did at last have the keeper beaten but rolled inches wide of the far post. Not long after that West Ham did get the ball in the net only to have the linesman rule it offside. Dani, on as a 2nd half sub, crossed from the left, Cottee flicked it on to find Dowie beyond the defence at the the far post. He scored with a header only to find the goal ruled out. The TV replay I saw later suggested that he was indeed offside from the flick on.

Overall a good result against a team in form, though most of the plaudits must go to the defence. In attack Arsenal weren't terribly visible after the first half hour, though credit is due to West Ham for pushing the Gunners back so persistently, but it was still nice to see the Gunners hold out for the stereotypical 1-0.

I thought Hartson had quite a good game, in the first half at least though he inevitably didn't see much of the ball in the second. Much the same could be said of Bergkamp though in the 2nd he did quite a bit of carrying the ball in West Ham's half but often ended up losing it through lack of support.

Merson also wasn't much in evidence in the 2nd half, though I have a feeling that may have been because he was ordered to play a more defensive role after the break. There were a couple of occasions at throw ins or corners where Arsenal only had one or two men in the area. Hillier didn't do a lot either right or wrong to justify starting the game, or being substituted at half time, and with Arsenal spending most of the half on the back foot Platt didn't get much chance to do anything but defend. Of the midfield I thought Parlour had the best game. In the second half particularly he was the only one who seemed to be making the runs required to support the front two.

Linighan and, particularly, Keown did sterling work in defence, aided by Morrow who didn't do a lot wrong. Keown was captain for the day, and led superbly by example. Dixon and Winterburn spent most of the game as defenders though in the 1st half both got forward quite well early on. There's no question about the man of the match though. Spunky proved he is peerless as England's no. 1 once again.

report by Derek Brownjohn

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