Francis Coquelin fails to win a tackle vs — Stat News

Cech later posted a message on Twitter, aiming to put the poor result swiftly behind him.

The Hammers have had little success when it comes to Premier League opening fixtures, having lost more games on the opening weekend than any other side. “The mistake was a collective one“, Wenger said. “I would rather say too nervous”. I knew that if the delivery was good, we would be in trouble before the free-kick was taken. I don’t think we were too confident.

Arsene Wenger refused to criticise Petr Cech after the goalkeeper endured a hard debut in Arsenal’s 2-0 loss to West Ham. I can’t see many convincing individual performances today.

“Today we have been hurt mentally and it is a good opportunity to respond“, he added.

“We didn’t always respect the basics”.

“When you concede the goal before half-time, with the experience in our team, it was hard to understand”, he said.

“We gave ourselves a mountain to climb”.

It’s hard but it’s part of our job. “We have to respond quickly”, said Wenger. “It’s great start for us against a team that are title contenders”.

But with the visitors proving a real threat themselves, the game was finely poised and West Ham took control just before the interval when Cheikhou Kouyate headed in.

Niall Quinn claims that “a star is born” after watching West Ham United’s Reece Oxford face Arsenal.

Extensively seen as top-of-the-line strikes of the pre-season switch market thus far, Cech’s arrival for a reported payment of about $17.3m was designed to strengthen Arsenal bid for a primary league title since 2004. Dimitri Payet booted one over the top of the wall and caught Cheikhou Kouyaté with a perfectly timed header from the center of the box.

And the same pattern continued after the re-start.

After barely misplacing a pass and earning the free kick from which West Ham went ahead, Oxford, who was given a standing ovation after being replaced in the 79th minute, could barely stop smiling. Oxlade-Chamberlain failed to clear from the left side of the penalty area, and Zarate picked up the loose ball, turned and slammed a low shot into the bottom corner past a wrong-footed Cech.

West Ham manager Slaven Bilic has reportedly instructed club officials to make a bid for Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez in an attempt to strengthen his front line.

Payet’s decision to move to West Ham from Marseille, where he finished as Ligue 1’s leading goal-provider last season with 16 assists, raised eyebrows in France.