Guts and near glory for gutsy Hammers
West Ham produced another master class defensive performance and but for the underside of the bar from a late Chicharito shot would tonight have jumped out of the bottom three.
David Moyes’ new Irons’ showed tremendous defensive organisation to keep the Gunners at bay before all but pinching the late winner.
The improvement in this side is nothing short but staggering and if anybody would have imagined two successive clean sheets against Chelsea and Arsenal was possible just a month ago they would have been laughed out of the east end.
The change in Marko Arnautovich is the same as he collected the Man of the Match award at the end of an all action display ahead of his return to Stoke at the weekend.
The Austrian never stopped running as the lead performer in a Hammers team of total and absolute resolution.
Arsenal dominated but could never find a way through this brilliantly marshalled defence and could only ever create half chances when Adrian saved low before seeing others fly high and wide.
The Hammers battled and battled though and despite late free kicks from Sanchez clung on to a precious point which the performance more than deserved.
It could have been so much more when Chicharito curled a late shot into the underside of the bar and it rebounded on the wrong side of the goal line
David Moyes declared himself happy at the end saying: “I’m thrilled with four points from these three games and two clean sheets.
“When I saw the fixtures on arriving I thouhgt “Here we go” so to have those clean sheets and points is brilliant. Maybe we can now get on the front foot in our forthcoming games.”