Arsenal go top as West Ham drop into relegation zone

Arsenal would carry on that momentum in the second half and goals from Mesut Ozil minutes after the restart, followed by Alex Iwobi would seal the result in the Gunners favour.

Arsenal’s Theo Walcott shrugs off Stoke City’s Giannelli Imbula.

Stoke made a bright start but appeared to fade in confidence and endeavour after Walcott’s equaliser late in the first half and Arsenal created numerous chances in the second 45 minutes. Even when they have these occasional breaks from the usual, there is a tendency to eventually revert. “I’ll do everything I can to recover quickly and come back stronger than before”, Mustafi said in a tweet.

Indeed, Gabriel looked a little cumbersome whenever he picked up possession in Stoke’s half, which robbed Arsenal of an important attacking outlet from deeper in the pitch.

“Arsenal are an exceptional side and a lot of teams have suffered at their hands”, Hughes said.

The win over Stoke was a case in point.

In the end, it proved to be a key moment in the match – and for positive rather than negative reasons. In Ozil, Sanchez, Hector Bellerin and Petr Cech, Arsenal possess some seriously talented players, and they’re surrounded by a very impressive supporting cast. “There is not one player you can question”.

Stoke had plenty of that, together with commitment – they just lacked Arsenal’s quality on the ball. What was especially clear after Bellerin came on was the space that both he and Walcott enjoyed down the right-hand side.

They are not going to gallop away with the title but they could plausibly still be there once everyone else has burnt out.

Things changed once Wenger had reconfigured his backline, though.

“When you analyse past year, last season at home we did very well against the top five and we dropped points against teams in mid-table. And we dropped points between five and 12 at home, teams that were in mid-table”, Wenger said.

Mustafi has been in excellent form since joining the club from Valencia in the summer and has formed a superb partnership with Laurent Koscielny so we’re going to miss him over the coming weeks.

According to The Express, the Chile worldwide has a couple of issues the club need to resolve before extending his stay at the Emirates – one of them being the future of Wenger.

“Look, the minimum when you go out like that is 21 days. That means he’ll have a nice Christmas”.