‘Hardened Shell’ or ‘Bang Average’? Arsenal keen to silence critics as fresh title verdict delivered before West Ham clash

Ahead of Sunday’s Premier League encounter between leaders Arsenal and relegation-threatened West Ham United, hear what the Sports Mole team have to say about the upcoming contest.

Ben Knapton, Site Coordinator: ‘The title is done if Arsenal beat West Ham’

As an Arsenal fan, this is probably the best time of my life. I didn't really get into football until after the glory days of Arsene Wenger, so I wasn't a fan when we reached the final in 2006.

I wasn't a fan when we had the Invincibles, so this is undoubtedly the most exciting time for me to be an Arsenal fan, and especially when we had that really tricky run where we lost the EFL Cup final, we went out the FA Cup to Southampton, lost at home to Bournemouth.

We all thought, ‘Oh God, it's the dreaded B word, it's the bottle happening again’, but we've turned it around.

We've won three of our last four, [have reached the] Champions League final, which we will be underdogs for, I think it's fair to say, but the fact that we're there, we deserve to be there.

Premier League title, I think we can finally say now it's ours to lose. I've very rarely been, or never been, this optimistic and happy as an Arsenal fan before.

But immediately my mind is going back to 2023, where Arsenal had a 2-0 lead (away against West Ham), blew it, drew 2-2 and dropped two points, and that was a fatal result in the title race.

I'm sure [Mikel] Arteta and quite a few of the players who were in that game, we still had [Bukayo] Saka, [Ben] White, [Martin] Odegaard, [Leandro] Trossard, [Gabriel] Martinelli, they might still have some PTSD from the London Stadium, but recent results have been really encouraging. The 6-0 win the next season, the 5-2 win last season.

Given how Arsenal have been attacking recently, the Fulham game of course (3-0 win), that first half they blew them away, but there was the caveat of Fulham having that sickness bug running through the squad, so if they were fully fit and virus-free for that game, would've been interesting to see if it had panned out differently.

I think if Arsenal can just get over the line in this one, the title is done.

Oliver Thomas, Senior Reporter: “West Ham are in serious danger of the drop”

Man City will pray that West Ham can do them a favour. I think West Ham have got some decent results in recent weeks, but that defeat to Brentford, losing 3-0 last weekend, was a tough one for them to take.

I think they performed reasonably well in that game as well. They were a bit unfortunate, hit the woodwork three times in that game, they just couldn't find a way past Kelleher in the Brentford goal.

After seeing Forest and Tottenham both win away from home in difficult games on paper, West Ham look to be a team now in serious danger of the drop, so it puts even more pressure on this game against arguably the best team in the league and the toughest game they've got left this season.

They'll be hoping that Leeds can do them a favour against Tottenham on Monday, the pressure really is now on West Ham and if they can produce a similar sort of dogged display as they did against Man City when they drew 1-1 at home in March, then who knows?

Maybe they've got a chance of causing a bit of an upset against Arsenal, but for me personally, I'd still back Arsenal to win this one.

Matt Law, Football Editor: ‘Disaster for West Ham if they go down'

It's a very difficult one. I think West Ham's recent form, seven points from their last four games, is pretty good, to be fair, for a team battling towards the bottom.

But they wouldn't have expected Tottenham to go and win at Villa last time out, and that was a hammer blow for West Ham after seeing that result.

I said a couple of weeks ago that I thought Tottenham would get out of it. I just had a feeling and you do fear for West Ham at this point, and you fear for them going forward.

There’s talk about the players that they'd lose this summer if they go down. Strangely enough, I just feel like they'd keep [Jarrod] Bowen.

Obviously a lot of teams would take him, but then you're looking elsewhere. Mateus Fernandes. El Hadji Malick Diouf, interestingly enough, has been linked with Manchester United. He's come on well this season.

They would have five or six of their really good players taken out of them, and it's just disaster for West Ham if they go down this season. The stadium, the fan base. It would be the same for Tottenham.

This is a tough game, and this is the one for Arsenal that if they're going to drop points, it's going to be this one, because I can't see that in the last two (against Burnley and Crystal Palace).

Man City will be hoping for a favour, but it's a tough game, a brilliant game and a really big one which I'm really looking forward to.

Matt Law, Football Editor: “Bang average Arsenal side in a bang average PL season”

I just feel it's not an elite Premier League season. This is not a great Man City side in my view. It's a good Man City side, but a really good Man City side would be finishing above this Arsenal side.

Arsenal, for me, have got two world-class centre backs, they've got a really good goalkeeper, they've got a really elite central midfielder in Declan Rice, and I think everyone else is all right, to be honest. I don't think they're great.

I was looking at the lowest ever totals for champions and seventh in the list is Manchester United in 1995-96 with 82 points. Arsenal are on 76, there's three games left, so they could get in and around that.

So statistically, they're going to be one of the lowest points totals in terms of champions. That's a basis of evidence of that, but my eyes don't lie to me and I watch Arsenal.

It's hardly been a generational run to the Champions League final. It is Leverkusen, Sporting and a poor Atletico side to get to the final, so that blows my mind a little bit.

They'll deserve a lot of respect if they win it, and I'm not here to be a killjoy because I don't want to take Ben's thunder away from him, but I just feel like it's a bang average Arsenal side in a bang average Premier League season.

Ben Knapton, Site Coordinator: ‘Arsenal have a hardened shell, not a soft underbelly’

All I will say for that, I think when it's Arsenal, there always seems to be new ways to discredit them.

I'm not sure if it's because rival fans can no longer banter Arsenal. During COVID we were the banter team, we had the bantering years, and now we're not.

We've not got a soft underbelly anymore. We've got a hardened shell, and rival fans don't like that. As long as we actually win something, they can't mock us for being bottle jobs, they can't mock us for blowing these two goal leads anymore, so they're just finding something to cling onto.

And that Champions League run you mentioned, Matt, you can only beat what's in front of you. Arsenal had the easy run because they finished first in the League Phase, beat Bayern, put four past Atletico.

Atletico beat Barcelona in the quarter-finals. Sporting beat Bodo/Glimt, who beat Inter Milan. So it's the easiest side of the draw? Yes, but that's not Arsenal's fault. They've beaten what's in front of them.

The other teams they've beaten have beaten really good teams as well, so you cannot discredit their achievements whatsoever.