Arteta admits West Ham defeat one of most frustrating nights at Arsenal | Arsenal – MyCyberBase

Mikel Arteta admitted that Arsenal lacked ruthlessness in the final third after their title hopes were hit by a shock 2-0 defeat at home to West Ham.

Stung by goals from Tomas Soucek and Konstantinos Mavrapanos, Arteta’s side missed the chance to replace Liverpool at the top of the Premier League and failed to pull away from Manchester City. It was a frustrating night for Arsenal, who had 30 shots to West Ham’s five, and will revive the debate over whether they need to sign a new striker in January.

“This is football,” Arteta said. “We look at how much we generated. The result is very disappointing. They were better than us in both boxes. It is what it is. We have to try to generate. We haven’t scored with 30 shots. I cannot imagine a game more dominant.

“Today it wasn’t enough to win the game. It is football. The team generates that much, normally you are going to win games. Against Brighton we generated so much and against Liverpool as well. Today the team deserves to win the game.”

Arteta was reluctant to dwell on West Ham’s opener standing after a VAR review failed to detect whether the ball had gone behind before Jarrod Bowen pulled it back for Soucek. The angles were inconclusive.

“I haven’t seen it,” Arteta said. “They say it is not conclusive. It is just a shame that with the technology it is not that clear. It is gone and there is not much we can do now. If the technology we have is not good enough to give us an answer, what we have to do without that is win the game with the amount of situations we generated.”

David Moyes celebrated a clinical, resilient display moving West Ham up to sixth. “A brilliant defensive job,” the Scot said. “Terrific structure, organisation, discipline by the players. Arsenal played incredibly well. It’s a big part of football, defending. Arsenal used to make a living out of it here, if you remember.”

The only concern for West Ham was Lucas Paqueta limping off with a knee injury during the first half. The captain, Kurt Zouma, was also absent in central defence.