There is a famous and oft-quoted sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning that begins: 'How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways'. To me, this Arsenal team have their own version, that begins: 'How Can We Concede A Goal Stupidly? Let Us Count The Ways'. Because it appears that each week they find another way to shoot themselves in the foot. Anyway, I'll come back to that shortly, as part of my dissection of the Jekyll & Hyde performance at West Ham on Sunday.
And so to team news, following the strange, timid and lacklustre performance that saw Arsenal scrape through their Europa League tie against Olimpiakos on Thursday. 6 changes as Pablo Mari, Calum Chambers, Bukayo Saka, Thomas Partey, Martin Odegaard and Alexandre Lacazette came back into the starting line-up. And for the first... oh, half hour I suppose, Arsenal played as if they were complete strangers to each other, barely having a kick as as largely functional West Ham side totally dominated every aspect of the game. Sky put up a graphic after 10 minutes that showed that West Ham had had 33 touches of the ball in Arsenal's final third of the pitch, to precisely none by Arsenal at the other end.
On 15 minutes, West Ham took the lead when from Antonio's run off the back of David Luiz (who, along with Granit Xhaka, is inexplicably selected for every game irrespective of the rotation that goes on around the pair of them) and found the unmarked Lingard - bizarrely discarded by Manchester United - on the edge of the box and his half-volley fizzed past Leno into the top corner of the net. A lovely finish, and nothing less than both sides deserved.
Just 90 seconds later came the latest in the chapter of defensive accidents to which I referred in my opening paragraph. Saka brought down Antonio (it was soft) on the edge of the box and as Arsenal started to wander back into their positions for the free kick the enterprising Lingard (a player who I find as irritating an opponent as any) released Bowen on the right side of the penalty area, and he beat Leno's poor effort to save at the near post. If one is going to be slightly churlish about the officiating, the free kick was taken 5 yards back from where the foul occurred and Jon Moss was reaching for his foam canister; but frankly it was down to Arsenal simply switching off. Following other bizarre incidents - Villa, Wolves and Burnley spring to mind off the top of my head - this was just another example of rank lack of professionalism.
Arsenal finally woke up at 2-0, and even worked Fabianski (who once or twice showed why we had given him the nickname Flappyhandski) at one or two moments, but after 32 minutes it went from bad to worse as once again an attempt to play the ball out from the back led to Arsenal losing the ball just 25 yards from goal. Coufal's cross was headed goalwards by Antonio (who had got above Luiz), and Soucek got the final touch. 3-0; and this against a West Ham side who are, as I say, functional and decent (and outperforming all expectations this season) - but no more than that. Utterly embarrassing for an Arsenal side who had barely turned up.
Fortunately, Arsenal pinched a goal back a few minutes later, when Chambers' cross was controlled well by Lacazette and his fierce shot - actually going just wide - was deflected in by Soucek. And this gave the visitors the momentum going into half-time, and out the other side. Odegaard started to prompt from the number 10 position, and West Ham started to show some cracks as Arsenal finally - via the Norwegian and Laca, who started to come short to receive the ball - found space between the West Ham midfield and defence. They should have had another before half-time, as the Frenchman's through ball released Saka, who could only shoot tamely and too close to the goalkeeper.
The second half began with Arsenal rampant. Lacazette had a clever lob cleared off the line by Diop, and then fired the ball straight at Fabianski. Luiz almost got his head on an Odegaard free kick. And then - following a quickly taken free kick that probably wasn't a free kick - Chambers ran on to Odegaard's clever reverse pass to get in an excellent low cross, which was hammered into his own net by the retreating Dawson. He had no choice but to play the ball, as Aubameyang would have had a tap in, but that made it two own goals of course; and West Ham could probably count themselves a little unfortunate as the award of the free kick was trivial. Still, I'm sure we weren't complaining.
It was at this point that Jamie Carragher remarked that Chambers was reminding him of Cafu, which I'm sure made us all chuckle. Any resemblance to the skilful marauding Brazil right back of yesteryear is purely coinicidental, but the man brought in to play at right back mainly due to his extra height had turned provider not once, but twice!
From then on it was frantic, with chances at both ends as Arsenal pressed for the equaliser. Benrahma had a couple of half chances following a break, but couldn't get the ball out of his feet, and Antonio contrived to hit the post from two yards.
But the equaliser arrived on 82 minutes when another lovely pre-assist pass from Odegaard found substitute Pepe, whose exquisite cross with his right (i.e. wrong) foot picked out Laca at the far post for a bullet header of a finish.
And the action wasn't over. Rice's barnstorming 70-yard (yes I said 70-yard!) run ended with a fierce shot that Leno palmed away. And there was still time for 'Cafu' to get in another cross which Fabianski beat away with two strong hands.
So what should we make of that? Well, Laca admitted after the game that the players had not performed to instructions for the first half hour, and that would explain a lot. But Arteta must find a way to get them to perform for the full 90+ minutes, and to cut out the stupid concession of goals. It does seem that Arsenal are unduly punished for these crass errors - much more than other sides - but the way to counter that would of course be not to make them.
Positives are the way that they fought their way back into the contest from a seemingly impossible position, and the excellent performances from Chambers, Lacazette, and especially Odegaard. At this point, with more points dropped, there is little margin for error with some tricky fixtures still to come. And the team are into the quarter-finals of the Europa League - with a perfectly reasonable draw that may yet see a reunion with Unai Emery in the semis, and perhaps Mancheser United in the final. But first there's an Interlull, and then the not insignificant obstacle that is Liverpool to come to The Emirates.
I feel that it's proably worth at this juncture just to have a quick laugh at Spurs, following their elimination from the Europa League on Thursday night. I for one cheered the Zagreb winner as loud as I ever cheer an Arsenal goal. Jose Mourinho appears to be the new 'specialist in failure' and must be clinging to his job. Plus surely Harry Kane must move on over the summer if he ever wants to win a trophy.
Back in a couple of weeks. Stay safe, please...
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