When David Sullivan was pressed on why West Ham bothered to move to the London Stadium, the lack of substance to his argument offered a window into the club’s dysfunction. “I just think we feel like a big club,” Sullivan said in an interview with the Guardian in December 2017. “Not a tinpot club. When players come to look at West Ham, they look at where you play.”
Look deeper, though. Analysing the club chair’s answer nine years on, the conclusion is that this is an owner whose desire to win is cancelled out by his listlessness. Feeling like a big club, after all, is not the same as being a big club.
Team news
West Ham manager Nuno Espirito Santo has switched to a back five, with Jean-Clair Todibo coming into the side in place of Pablo. Aaron Wan-Bissaka is preferred to Kyle Walker-Peters at right-back; those are the only changes from last weekend’s defeat at Brentford.
Arsenal are unchanged from the Champions League semi-final win over Atletico Madrid.
West Ham (5-2-2-1) Hermansen; Wan-Bissaka, Disasi, Todibo, Mavropanos, Diouf; Soucek, Fernandes; Bowen, Summerville; Castellanos.
It was a soundbite designed to go viral, the kind the ex-pros in the TV studios are always looking to confect; snappy, heavy on hyperbole, bang in the moment. Thierry Henry made it pop on Tuesday night as he interviewed Bukayo Saka on CBS Sports after Arsenal had beaten Atlético Madrid to advance to the Champions League final. “We were the Invincibles. You will be the Unforgettables,” Henry said.
There it was, as laid out by one of the greats, the goalscoring hero of Arsenal’s unbeaten bolt to the 2004 Premier League title, the last one they won.
Saka, who scored the winner in the second leg at a delirious Emirates Stadium, and his teammates can see the path to glory. Actually, it is more than that. It would be immortality. Because if they can hold off Manchester City to win the league and add the Champions League in Budapest on 30 May, it would top anything any group of Arsenal players has achieved.
Preamble
Hello. If you’re going to win your first title in 22 years, you might as well slay a few demons en route. Arsenal’s traumatic collapse in the 2022-23 season, their first title challenge under Mikel Arteta, gathered pace during a 2-2 draw at West Ham in which they lost a two-goal lead and Bukayo Saka missed a penalty.
Arsenal have scored 11 goals on their two subsequent visits to the London Stadium – but a scruffy 1-0 win today would be far more meaningful. Many people, including Sky Sports’ Jamie Carragher, think the title race will be over if Arsenal get the job done today.
On paper they have a tougher fixture on the final day, away to 15th-placed Crystal Palace. But while Palace are almost certainly safe – and play their first European final three days after the Arsenal game – West Ham are fighting for their Premier League lives.
They’re a point behind Spurs, who play Leeds tomorrow, and have an inferior goal difference. The atmosphere at the London Stadium hasn’t always been the best, but it will surely be ferocious come kick-off time.
It’s close to a must-win game for both teams, which means something has to give. A helluva lot has to give.
