Arsene Wenger blames Arsenal’s lack of ‘physical resources’ for stalemate with ‘highly-defensive’ West Ham

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James Benge14 December 2017

Arsene Wenger believes Arsenal paid the price for a lack of “physical resources” after their goalless draw with West Ham at the London Stadium.

Wenger rotated his side significantly from the one that drew with Southampton on Sunday. He rested Alexandre Lacazette, and started Olivier Giroud, Alex Iwobi and Jack Wilshere. Left-back Sead Kolasinac was also spared from the clash.

In contrast, West Ham boss David Moyes named the same side that had beaten Chelsea 1-0 on Saturday. Despite this, the Hammers covered more distance than the Gunners and produced a disciplined defensive performance.

Wenger hinted that might have been different had the teams’ weekend fixtures been reverted, and Arsenal had been afforded an additional day of rest.

“There’s some draws which are frustrating, it’s one of them, yes.” Wenger told reporters after the match. “We had a lot of the ball. It was 10 against 10 in the final third, and we couldn’t find an opening. It was a little bit for the fact they defended very well.

“They are in a highly-defensive and focused phase at the moment. They did that against [Manchester] City, against Chelsea and did that tonight. We lacked maybe a little bit of sharpness as well in the final third. We had many different good opportunities.

“I think that’s where you see, maybe if they had played on Sunday and we had played on Saturday it might have been different on that front, because they had more physical resources to defend with a lot of decisiveness.”

Photo: Getty Images
Getty Images

Moyes meanwhile hailed the defensive vigour his side showed in restricting Arsenal to just three shots on Adrian’s goal, while Marko Arnautovic also had a goal ruled out in the opening 45 minutes.

The Hammers nearly snatched a last-minute winner when substitute Javier Hernandez’s curling shot was tipped onto the bar by Petr Cech

“It was a really, organised disciplined performance again,” Moyes said. “Sometimes if you hang in and stick with it you can get yourself a few opportunities. We got one right at the end, for a moment I thought it was in.

“We have to praise the boys for how disciplined they are and [especially] the defenders, who stuck to their task against a team who caused us a lot of problems.”

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