Raul Jimenez Is Close – West Ham Boss Slaven Bilic

But Wenger, speaking ahead of his side’s opener against West Ham at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday, insists his squad should instead take a collective approach to their goalscoring duties this term. History tells us that Chelsea players who go on loan to Vitesse tend not to return to Chelsea’s first team.

The surprise package of the weekend was Joe Gomez, the new Liverpool signing who joined from Charlton for £3.5m this summer.

Can West Ham make it into the top four in future? Despite Jose Mourinho’s assertion he was happy with the display in the first half there was a weariness and lack of spark about the home team’s play – not as noticeable as against Arsenal in the Community Shield but nevertheless significant -that suggested they are not yet at peak fitness.

But Astra proved last week that they can be a potent attacking force and nearly levelled when the busy Budescu’s whipped free-kick caught out Darren Randolph in the West Ham goal and came back off the crossbar.

With good pre-season results, no Champions League qualifiers to distract them and a new top class goalkeeper there was real hope.

“(Bilic) asked me to sit and talk to everyone to help get them into position, not to let Arsenal catch us out on the break, to keep it simple and not try to do too much.

Payet compared to Stewart Downing at West Ham last season, Dusan Tadic, Oscar and, fellow Ligue 1 playmaker, Javier Pastore.

Finishing higher than the 12th place Sam Allardyce achieved will be very hard for Slaven Bilic in his first season at West Ham.

What does Arsenal v West Ham mean to me?

Though West Ham have long had a reputation for developing promising young players – in recent years Mark Noble and James Tomkins are among those to regularly feature for the first team – the last England global the club produced was Glen Johnson in 2002-03. The performance, like United’s, was ordinary for the most part.

Yes, Arsene Wenger’s side still threatened and West Ham would not have won without their keeper Adrian playing well, but there was a reason why Arsenal did not create as many chances as they normally would at home. This, he reckons, is as good a side as he has produced in a decade, even if his old comrade in arms Thierry Henry claims they are one player short of being genuine championship contenders. “You need 10 minutes”. Obviously we are disappointed to have gone out.

“From where I was sat and the replay I saw, the referee got it right“, the Swans boss said. As it stands, he’s the only out-and-out senior striker at Wenger’s disposal, with his other options being forwards-cum-wide players in Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott and Danny Welbeck.

“I would like to think we are responsible to buy the people and the coaches, and not the media”.