Speaking in his Sky Sports column, former Arsenal and Scotland forward Charlie Nicholas has described the club’s 2-0 defeat as a poor defensive performance.
The Hammers defeated Arsenal due to a couple of errors from the north London side, with Petr Cech heavily involved in both goals – for the first one, he came out way too far to punch the ball, and couldn’t quite reach it, meaning that Cheikhou Kouyate had an easy chance to head home. While the second came through Mauro Zarate, after some sloppy play from Francis Coquelin, slow reactions from Per Mertesacker and the misjudged dive of Petr Cech.
Nicholas, who spent four years with Arsenal, believes that the club did not take the game seriously with their defensive organisation: “They were too cocky and paid the price. I’ll take nothing away from West Ham who were excellent but it has been an Achilles heel of theirs for a long time.
“It was one heck of a reminder to say that you can have all the good ingredients going forward but if you don’t sort your defence out you won’t win anything.
“It was an eye-opener, a wake-up call, but I’m glad, if anything, it happened on the first weekend of the season rather than well into the season.”
With Cech making the key mistakes on his debut, 53-year-old Nicholas admitted his surprise at the errors: “It’s not a pleasant feeling on the first game of the season when your major signing of the summer is a goalkeeper, who has got us all excited, and he’s involved in mishaps with his defence straight away.
“It just proves it takes time to bed in but I genuinely feel that Arsenal will always be associated with having weaker defenders because so much effort is about attacking play.”
Although a poor defensive performance was put in by the Gunners, talent and depth is not lacking, with the likes of Laurent Koscielny, Per Mertesacker, Gabriel Paulista and now Calum Chambers, who has moved to the middle of the pitch, all ready to step up and feature when called upon, and Nicholas believes the pressure will do nothing but good for the side: “(Per) Mertesacker did look better in pre-season but I think he’ll come under pressure from Gabriel Paulista.
“Calum Chambers is being groomed as an out and out centre-half, so they do have cover in that department.”
Arsenal have been heavily linked with Karim Benzema this summer, as well as a host of names including Edinson Cavani and Grzegorz Krychowiak, but the former Celtic forward believes Wenger will only buy players who are better than the current crop of talent he already possesses: “He’ll only go into the market if he knows he can get better players than he’s already got.
“He’s not a man who buys for the sake of buying and I’ve always believed that philosophy is correct.
“Over the last few years he’s spent a fortune on Ozil and Sanchez. He brought in the experience of Mertesacker and now he’s brought in Cech so he’s been more adaptable than he maybe was in the past.
“If Benzema was to become available for say £40m and he felt he was going to make the side better he’d sign him and you sell Giroud or one or two other players.
“I do think he’ll actively be searching the market and if nothing comes up he won’t buy for the sake of buying.”
Now, with Crystal Palace coming up on Sunday, who took apart newly promoted Norwich City in their first game of the season, the Gunners will have to put in a much better defensive performance if they are to come away with all three points.
