Arsenal 0-1 West Ham United
Premier League, Emirates Stadium, Saturday 22 February 2025, 3pm GMT
Jarrod Bowen reached a half-century of Premier League goals as West Ham United earned another famous win at Emirates Stadium.
Our captain bagged the only goal of the game at Arsenal – his 50th top-flight strike in Claret and Blue.
The landmark was reached in 181 Irons league games and has been made up of 34 left-footed goals, six right-footed efforts and ten headers. He’s scored 47 inside the box and three outside the box, including four against the Gunners.
The Hammers, looking to evoke the spirit of last season’s famous 2-0 win in north London, started brightly and were allowed to dominate the early possession by the hosts, having 57 per cent of the ball in the opening ten minutes.
Despite that control, it was Arsenal who had the game's first scoring chance. Declan Rice found himself out wide on the left and whipped a dangerous pass across the face of goal. Mikel Merino met it at the back post but, at full stretch, couldn't turn the ball towards the target.
That opportunity seemed to spark the Hammers into some action of our own, with a series of promising moves arriving in the moments after at the other end.
Bowen’s fizzing effort narrowly evaded David Raya’s top-right corner, an unmarked Tomáš Souček glanced James Ward-Prowse’s cross wide at the end of a well-worked move, Bowen fired our best opportunity wide after running on to Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s perfectly-weighted pass midway through the first half, and Souček headed again just past the post.
Arsenal hit back, as the West Ham defence blocked shots from Riccardo Calafiori and Rice, then Jean-Clair Todibo did likewise to keep out Martin Ødegaard’s powerful goal-bound effort from the edge of the box. In fact, Alphonse Areola was not called upon at all in the opening 45 minutes.
And just as it looked like the opening period would end goalless, the Hammers grabbed a welcome lead shortly before the break in the form of a swift counter-attack.
The hosts committed men forward as they went in search of what would have been the ultimate sucker punch, but we won the ball back and produced a slick move that ended with Bowen stooping to meet Wan-Bissaka’s pinpoint right-wing cross and head home, becoming only the second West Ham player to reach 50 Premier League strikes after Michail Antonio.
The levels had evidently been cranked up following the restart from Mikel Arteta’s title-chasing Gunners, but they were being frustrated in their attempts to find a way through the well-organised away defence.
Leandro Trossard had an effort blocked inside eight minutes of the second half and Merino's thumping front-post header was off target, while at the other end, Aaron Cresswell’s low cross narrowly evaded Bowen at full stretch inside the six-yard box.
Arsenal countered again. More shots were fired, including by substitute Oleksandr Zinchenko, and more were repelled for corners or away from danger, with Areola forced into his first noteworthy save low down to his left to deny Trossard, before the same player fired wide after stretching to meet a Ethan Nwaneri cross.
However, a red card for Myles Lewis-Skelly - that needed a VAR intervention - swung the pendulum of momentum, as he was adjudged to have denied Mohammed Kudus a goal-scoring opportunity having robbed him of possession on the halfway line. We quickly built on that momentum, as Bowen curled a shot inches wide of the post.
The Gunners continued to press and briefly threatened at the other end. Moments after Dinos Mavropanos had fouled Raheem Sterling on the edge of the box, the England international’s free-kick was blocked by a wall of Claret and Blue bodies, before Gabriel Magalhães shot wide of Areola’s net and Trossard also hit one wildly off target.
West Ham continued to defend valiantly, and after eight minutes of added time ultimately earned Graham Potter a fourth win from his five games as a manager at the Emirates.
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Saliba (White 87), Gabriel, Calafiori (Lewis-Skelly, 56), Partey, Rice (Zinchenko 56), Ødegaard ©, Nwaneri (Sterling 81), Trossard, Merino
Subs not used: Neto (GK), Tierney, Kiwior, Jorginho, Butler-Oyedeji
Booked: Partey
Sent-off: Lewis-Skelly
West Ham United: Areola, Wan-Bissaka, Todibo (Mavropanos 62), Kilman, Cresswell, Scarles, Álvarez (Soler 88), Souček, Ward-Prowse, Bowen © (Ferguson 82), Kudus
Subs not used: Fabiański (GK), Emerson, Rodríguez, Irving, Luis Guilherme, Ings
Goal: Bowen 44
Booked: Todibo, Scarles, Ward-Prowse
Referee: Craig Pawson
Attendance: 60,262
