Triumph

It has to be said. West Ham United deserved to beat Arsenal at Upton Park and Alan Pardew is to be congratulated for getting his tactics and his substitutions right. He knows that Arsenal have the better players technically and the plan was to pack the midfield and pressurise them so that they would become more and more frustrated, allowing the possibility of introducing new attackers and with them the hope of a late winner.

It worked, and the Hammers players worked, incredibly well and as a result the same Arsenal team that had so comprehensively and so splendidly outplayed CSKA Moscow at The Emirates Stadium just a couple of days earlier seemed increasingly to be misfiring.

No-one can say for sure how much of that was down to Pardew’s plan, but it was a magnificent victory (albeit one marred by a certain amount of unpleasantness) and hopefully an indication that the Hammers are back on track.