West Ham 1-3 Arsenal

A better performance by the Hammers still ended in defeat, as Arsenal turned up the heat at the top of the table.
West Ham fielded a much-changed side from games' past as Maiga made way for Carlton Cole and Ravel Morrison was omitted from the squad with Kevin Nolan returning from suspension. Adrian kept his place in goal and despite his festive misdemeanours, James Tomkins lined up alongside James Collins in the centre of defence.
Arsenal named a strong side with Ramsey, Walcott, Ozil, Cazorla and Giroud all starting.
West Ham started brightly with Carlton Cole causing a number of difficulties for Mertesacker and Vermaulen in the centre of defence. Mark Noble played extremely well in the centre of midfield breaking up a number of Arsenal attacks. As usual, Arsenal were slow to start, but once they got into their stride were very difficult to live with. Crisp, fast passing but with Olivier Giroud up front, not a great deal of end product. Despite a slow start, at the halfway point, Arsenal had dominated 68% of possession and had the majority of the chances. Theo Walcott had the best chance at the end of the half when a scything through ball fell to him in the six yard box, the West Ham faithful praying for the offside flag which never appeared, somehow he managed to drive the ball wide. West Ham were hanging on, but went in at the break 0-0.
It seemed like a change of gameplan for the Irons at the break as we looked to soak up pressure and hit Arsenal on the counter attack. As we know, a plan executed with some aplomb against the hapless Spurs team at their place last October (sorry - I couldn't resist!)
Early in the half, after a broken down Arsenal attack, West Ham broke and a Diame ball into the box was half cleared to an unmarked Nolan on the edge of the 18 yard area. A powerful drive straight at the keeper caused Sczezny only to parry to the awaiting Carlton Cole who deftly popped the ball into the Arsenal net and a surprise 1-0 lead to the Hammers. I was doubly over the moon as I had Cole as first goal scorer so was in the money. A trip to the sportingbet lads was in order, only to find they had promptly cleared out halfway through the second half!
So it was back to the football and buoyed by a vocal Upton Park crowd, West Ham's counter attacking style continued to find openings in the wobbly Arsenal defence. We successfully soaked up the pressure and hit on the break with Diame and Joe Cole the main tormentors. One such ball into the box, left Carlton Cole six yards out with an open goal at his disposal. Sadly, he could only manage to shot wide and when Joey O'Brien's free header squirmed inches wide, nerves set in and you could feel it was not going to be our day.
Ramsey pulled up with what appeared to be a torn muscle and on came Lucas Podolski who.had an immediate effect on the game. However despite staunch defending from the East Londoners, after much pressure a Walcott shot managed to wriggle through the defence and flailing arms of Adrian to equalise for the Gunners. For the last 25 minutes the gulf in quality and indeed the lack of belief from  West Ham filtered through as the North Londoners piled forward. Kieran Gibbs played in a hugely advanced role and terrorised Joey O'Brien, to cause a straight swap for Guy Demel. It was to no avail sadly as a cross whipped in from the left and deflected off a West Ham defender straight into the path of Walcott who rifled it into the net, scoring his first ever goal in the Premier League with his head. Hard to believe? This is West Ham, don't forget!
The home side had all but thrown in the towel by now and further Arsenal passing and moving mesmerised our drained defence and some nice interplay saw Giroud lay off to Podolski who fired into the bottom right to seal the victory.
The game ended with West Ham in the attack, but really it was all said and done and a noble performance was never enough against such a high quality attack. That being said, we did exposé the Arsenal defence on a number of occasions and if we had a real striker of any quality, we would have gone 2-0 up and who knows what might have happened. As with so many games this year our lack of quality firepower cost us, but as always, when our best players return,  I am confident we will be fine.
Hilariously, Carlton Cole was named man of the match. This depresses me as it depicts the huge lack of ambition at the club really. It was indeed his misses and his absent performance for the most part of the second half that cost us dear. If anyone was man of the match, I would suggest Noble, who worked tirelessly against a world class midfield.
West Bromwich Albion at home followed by Fulham away on New Year's Day now become huge fixtures for us.
Merry Christmas one and all and a happy new year.

The transfer merry-go-round

By: Trevor Twohig

Is anyone else confused about the dealings in the transfer market? The media circus reached its heady crescendo on Monday night with only three stories of any real interest.
Number one, Gareth Bale moved to Real Madrid. Shock horror this one. Moving swiftly on to number two, Man United dare I say it, paying well over the odds for Maroune Fellaini. It is hardly the statement that Moyes wanted to make at the beginning of his tenure, surely? Yes he knows the player well, but has everyone forgotten Fellaini’s headbutting incident at Stoke last year? An unproven player at the top-level seemingly, with a short fuse. Risky business for Man United and smacked a little of desperation for me.

Finally, Arsenal’s signing of Mesut Ozil to smash their transfer record. Did I miss something here? Were Arsenal fans desperate for Wenger to sign yet another midfielder? Granted Ozil is a top class player and I hope he does well. I am just interested to see how he will slot into a midfield alongside Santi Cazorla, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey et al.

Rosicky’s playing out of his skin and let us not forget the returning Mathieu Flamini from Milan to bolster the squad. Interesting times lay ahead for Arsenal and Wenger has indeed papered over the cracks with a big money signing. But the lack of a world class striker and a lumbering central defence will prevent them launching any sort of title challenge, methinks.

The most outrageous transfer story has to be found at Upton Park though in my opinion. After months of trying to lure Andy Carroll to the Boleyn, it finally happens to rapturous applause from large swathes of West Ham fans, including me. Great signing for us and things were looking splendid at the start of the transfer window.

Then came Stewart Downing, another good Premier League player who I think will do well for us. But this cost the whole of our transfer budget and took player wages to the top-level; the eyebrow-raising £70,000 a week for Downing, being the nail in that particular coffin.

Did Gold and Sullivan not think earlier in the window we would need to offload some of the fringe players? Was it not patently obvious that if we are trying to build towards a utopian future at the forefront of English football (the Olympic Stadium is a Grade 4 UEFA stadium, don’t you know!), then some of the old guard would need to be moved on? Clearly not.

As such we have Matty Taylor, Ricardo Vaz Te, Modibo Maiga, Alou Diarra and Stephen Henderson who should not get anywhere near our first team with the aspirations we have. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the service from the likes of Taylor and Vaz Te, but are we a club looking to survive at the bottom or push for the top half?

I appreciate I may be getting slightly ahead of myself here, we have only been back in the Premier League for one season. But in the same breath, we don’t have a striker! Allardyce hopes that Carroll may play some role in the Southampton game. Alarm bells here anyone?

Back in the Building: Carlton Cole's return is imminent

As I was working myself up into quite a state regarding the transfer debacle, I thought to myself, ‘If only we still had trusty, loyal Carlton Cole to turn to…’ and lo and behold, he is in negotiations to return. As Big Sam comes to the table, tail firmly between legs, I will dust off my ‘Sex, Drugs and Carlton Cole’ t-shirt and pray, just pray that Andy Carroll can get fit.