LONDON — By god, they’ve gotten away with one here. If Arsenal do go on to win the league, it will have been in spite of what they did Sunday. Not just the goal they conceded at the death that never was — Callum Wilson’s strike ruled out after an agonizingly lengthy VAR check concluded that Pablo’s arm had impeded David Raya — but the numerous ways in which this team insisted on inflicting agony on itself and its supporters.
Mikel Arteta had mangled his substitutions after Ben White’s early injury. Even with teams that vaguely approximated a normal XI, Arsenal had frittered away the control they had established for themselves in the first quarter. When the combined composure of Martin Odegaard and Leandro Trossard delivered them a lead, heads were dispatched beyond the moon, beyond Mars, beyond the known universe.
Arsenal set themselves up to blow it. For a moment, it appeared they had. A corner arrowed through Raya’s hands. William Saliba’s knee only diverted the ball to Wilson, who smacked the ball against Declan Rice, well inside the goal line. For a moment, West Ham thought they had a point to draw them level with Tottenham and safety. Then came a reassessment of the penalty area drama that seemed like it might never end. More than four minutes later came the conclusion that Pablo’s arm had blocked off Raya. Seventeen replays at the monitor. The title might just have been saved for Arsenal by Chris Kavanagh and VAR Darren England, who might also have relegated West Ham too.
No wonder Arteta was so complimentary about the officiating team.
“When I have to be critical, I have been,” he said. “And today, I have to praise them, at least for giving the option to a referee to decide. Away from the lights and the chaos, to give clarity to him to make the right call. And when you look at the action in that way, I think it is an obvious error.
“It is a free kick and the goal has to be disallowed. So congratulations because they made a big call in very, very difficult circumstances. Today I have realized how difficult and how big the referee’s job is. You’re talking about a moment that can decide the history of two massive clubs that are fighting with their lives to achieve their objectives. The pressure is huge.”
Whether the five-minute check delivered the right decision is not something Arteta and Nuno Espirito Santo are ever certain to agree on. Nor is the rest of the world. Every fanbase can dig up that JPEG of that moment when they were done on a dead ball this season. Plenty of them will feel it is Arsenal who did the damage to them. Few will find occasions when a goalkeeper has been impeded from raising his arms in the direction of the ball without a foul being called. Ultimately, though, there are too many instances in this sport right now where big bodies smash into each other in a confined space and demand the officials get out the atom microscope.
“It’s the lack of consistency in decisions,” said Nuno Espirito Santo. “In these recent seasons, a lot of blocking, grappling, holding has been happening, almost like a wrestling situation. All of us don’t really understand what a foul is. Even the referees confuse themselves. Sometimes it is, sometimes it’s not.
“Look at every corner in the Premier League, what’s happening? This. Everybody, us inclusive, are trying to do this but what is the frontier of what is a foul and what is not? It’s up to the referees to try to dictate what is a foul, what is allowed and what is not. It feels like something has changed. Everyone feels confused. The players don’t understand it. [The Premier League] has to solve it. They have to come to the clubs and explain it.
“Today we are upset and sad.”
Of course, West Ham could have tried a different set piece but this Premier League and its likely champions exist as proof of the value of the corner that swings into a pile of bodies and unleashes chaos.
There is no little irony that had it not been for Arteta, Nicolas Jover and a few progenitors at Brentford and Midtjylland, Pablo might not have been in position to block Raya off. What was he doing if not playing the Ben White role of professional irritant? Would there have been 16 players in the six-yard box if Gabriel, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice hadn’t been obliterating the league from dead balls for the last few years? What was this denouement of the season if not one meat wall set piece deciding who ascends to heaven and who is cursed to he the Championship?
Having been consistently dinged for it in Europe, Arsenal themselves have gravitated away from the more blatant blocking of the goalkeeper with one of their own that they deployed a few years ago. However, is it all that different from William Saliba manoeuvring Marc Cucurella into the path of his own goalkeeper? Senne Lammens might have watched this game and thought back to all the pressure Mikel Merino put on him before scoring earlier this year.
West Ham’s great fault in the 95th minute was that they took Arsenal’s template and added maybe 20% more pressure on the goalkeeper than was wise. Even when they haven’t scored off a corner in over two months, even when they messed up their defense of it, the kings of the dead ball had found a way to win off a set piece.
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Was any of this how we might want a Premier League title and relegation battle to be decided? It wasn’t much worse than much of the preceding hour. For 25 minutes, Arsenal had been asserting the control of champions on this contest. Trossard and Riccardo Calafiori combined particularly elegantly, creating a string of chances that might have brought a breakthrough before Ben White went down.
Yet again, an Arsenal injury beget another one. Calafiori could not continue at halftime. Sunday, however, the problem was less the actual setbacks than how Arteta responded to them. Cristhian Mosquera would have made a perfectly capable alternative, a little less thrusting in attack but a player who has actually played more than one game at right back for Arsenal. Then again, that one game Rice played at right back had been pretty good and so on came Martin Zubimendi. Rice, one of the best midfielders on the planet, was shuffled out to right back.
It did not work. A home side resolutely pegged in started to find joy down the right, Crysencio Summerville spinning and driving a shot wide that had the London Stadium roaring. Even bringing on Mosquera at right back did not quite restore the balance and it was between him and William Saliba that Matheus Fernandes ghosted to break into the box. A touch too many, however, and Raya was out, blocking the shot with a save worthy of a three-time Golden Glove winner.
West Ham could justifiably feel they deserved something from this. They had had the best chances. Momentum had been on their side before the breakthrough. “We played good,” said Nuno. “We fought, we competed well, we created chances. The character of the boys, the noise of the stadium. We knew the position that we are in and the boys gave it a proper fight. This is what we will try to do until the last minute of it [the season]. Two games to go, it is our job to bounce back and fight and know that anything can still happen.”
For Arsenal, Myles Lewis-Skelly’s drive has been a vital addition to the midfield in recent weeks. When he is gambling with possession at left back, the stakes are rather higher. Meanwhile, Zubimendi’s cameo made even stronger the case for sticking with what had been working against Atletico Madrid and Fulham. Thirty-nine minutes after he came on, Zubimendi’s number was called again. Arsenal needed the control that Odegaard would provide them.
“The one on Zubi was tough, but I really felt that we had to put two attacking midfielders in that moment to generate all the kind of issues and threats. Thank God it worked out,” Arteta said.
The captain, oft maligned for his spotty recent fitness record, took the game by the scruff of the neck as Tony Adams or Patrick Vieira might. His fine through ball unleashed Noni Madueke late on but the cross was poor, so Odegaard took it on himself to turn provider instead. Just as the third defender converged on him, he delivered the killer pass. Trossard drove home and Arsenal had something to defend.
They wouldn’t try anything else. Despite Odegaard urging them to press up, Arsenal dropped into their shell, completing just six passes between the goal and the final whistle. There is no team better in a low block, but goodness, you are gambling on another of those Gabriel blocks, on the deflections favoring you, and Sunday, on the referees sharing your view of the key incidents. At any other point of the season, you’d ding Arsenal for this. You’d note that the issue is not so much whether or not West Ham should have had a goal — probably not — but that you’d given up that prime chance at the depth. Champions don’t need the VAR’s help to win at the 18th-best team in the Premier League.
Perhaps this one did. There are two league games left. You don’t need to be at your best. You don’t need to captivate the neutral. You don’t need to worry about whether this week’s lucky break will be next week’s gut punch. You just need to win. Somehow Arsenal did so.
