Mertesacker backs Arsenal to recover quickly from loss

Added to that was the fact that West Ham had played a load of competitive fixtures while Arsenal had a truncated pre-season and it’s not surprising that one team was ready and the other was not.

Cech arrived from Chelsea with a reputation for keeping clean sheets, but a header from Cheikhou Kouyate in the 43rd minute and a low shot by Mauro Zarate in the 57th minute unexpectedly beat the 33-year-old keeper.

Petr Cech’s first Premier League appearance for Arsenal turned into the stuff of nightmares as West Ham recorded their first win at the Emirates in eight years.

Still refusing to be drawn on the Gunners’ interest in Benzema, this is classic Arsene Wenger with the French boss never publicly revealing who the club have designs on signing. After a fine finish to last season and a Community Shield victory over Chelsea, optimism was flowing around the Emirtaes at the dawn of a new season at a level not witnessed in nearly a decade.

“I think these games are always a bit slow anyway, the players are still finding their feet and fitness”, Terry said. In the first half of the season Arsenal scored 34 goals and conceded 23, but tightened up at the back for the remainder of the season bagging 37 goals while shipping in just 13. Dimitri Payet’s Premier League debut was exceptional, showing pace and ball control to easily weave past Arsenal’s defence. Hopefully we can come back from that disappointment. We were able to do that against Arsenal and I am very happy. New manager, Slaven Bilic was in the hot seat after West Ham was eliminated in the Europa League by Romanian side Astra last week. He is one of the best goalkeepers in the world and I’m sure that if he goes to Real Madrid he could make the same performances or better. And that’s basically it. West Ham played well. We killed ourselves. With the experience we have in our team, it’s hard to understand.

“I think my work was more important than my goal”.

“It is a great start for us”, Bilic said. “He’s definitely going to do it [succeed], there’s no doubt”.

To Arsenal fans’ surprise, Santi Cazorla started the game on the left-wing before being switched to a deep central midfield role beside Francis Coquelin at half-time. We gave him too much distance to run into.