West Ham defeat 'a tough one' says Arsenal's Martin Odegaard

Arsenal slumped to a 2-0 defeat to West Ham at the Emirates Stadium as the team's inability to finish their chances, while keeping things tight at the back came back to haunt them.

As far as frustrating games go, Arsenal's 2-0 loss to West Ham would have to be up there with the worst. Several chances were missed early on and Arsenal were made to pay.

While the first goal scored by Tomáš Souček had a hint of "was the ball out?" in the lead-up, the Gunners simply didn't do enough in front of goal as they tallied 30 shots on goal to West Ham's six.

What the loss did was highlight Arsenal's need for an out-and-out goalscorer as several chances went begging as out of the Gunners' 30 shots, just eight were on target. All of which led to a poor defeat for the Gunners in front of their home fans.

“It’s a tough one," captain Martin Odegaard said via arsenal.com. "We always want to give the fans a good performance, we always want to win. It was the last home game of the year so we wanted to finish off in style, but today wasn’t the day and we have to look at ourselves and we have to learn and move on."

The loss sees Arsenal sit second in the league table, just two points behind Liverpool, but the Gunners will be feeling like this was one that got away. Had the team been more clinical in the final third and tighter at the back (which is very un-Arsenal like), the result might have been different.

Does the scoreline reflect the game? No, but the Hammers were more clinical in both boxes and in the end, that was the story of the game.

With the January transfer window opening in a couple of days, Mikel Arteta and the Arsenal brains trust must think long and hard about how to improve the squad as it has been a common theme of late with the Gunners not being prolific enough in front of goal.

We just hope that this won't come back to haunt Arsenal down the stretch.