Why Arsenal's title deciding trip to West Ham is not as tricky as fans might fear

Could this be a decisive weekend on the Premier League title race? After Arsenal's win over Fulham and Manchester City's chaotic 3-3 draw at Everton on Monday night, the Gunners' destiny is in their own hands. Win their last three matches and they will be champions for the first time in 22 years. Of those three matches, most would agree that Sunday's visit to West Ham is the most difficult, but it may not be as daunting as first appears.

Arsenal and Manchester City's remaining Premier League fixtures

Gooners may be suffering from a sense of PTSD, given how West Ham have ruined recent title challenges. In 2022/23, Arteta's team raced into a 2-0 lead in East London, Bukayo Saka squandering an opportunity from the penalty spot to make it 3-1, only for a Declan Rice-inspired Hammers to fight back and earn a 2-2 draw. In the two subsequent campaigns, the Irons have won at the Emirates too, the former ultimately costing the Gunners five months down the line.

However, Arsenal's last two visits to the London Stadium have been rather more memorable. Last season, Arsenal scored five during a rampant first half, Gabriel, Leandro Trossard, Martin Ødegaard, Kai Havertz and Saka all scoring, as they cruised to victory. The time before that, back in February 2024, was even more emphatic.

Arteta's team ran out 6-0 winners, scoring four times in 13 minutes immediately before half time, which famously led to a mass exodus of unhappy Hammers at the interval. Saka added a fifth before, to rub salt into the home side's wounds, Rice lashed in the sixth upon his first return to Stratford.

So now, can Arsenal secure a third successive away win over West Ham, something that has proved somewhat illusive throughout history.

Arsenal's longest winning streaks vs West Ham away

Note: Statistics courtesy of 11v11.com.

Amazingly, Arsenal have only ever won three successive visits to West Ham twice before. They enjoyed a five match winning streak at Upton Park between 2010 and 2014, as well as four in a row in the mid-to-late-90s. Well, never before have they scored as many as 11 goals in back-to-back encounters, offering encouragement that this will be another successful short visit east.

Of course, this won't be an easy fixture. Nuno Espírito Santo's side are scrapping for their lives. Last weekend's 3-0 defeat at Brentford, alongside Tottenham's win at a shambolically bad Aston Villa, plunged the Irons back into the bottom three, one point below Spurs. If Arsenal do win, and Tottenham defeat Leeds on Monday night, West Ham would be four adrift with only two to play, leaving them on the brink of the drop.

Thus, the home side and support will be desperate, which is never what an opposition want to come up against at this stage of the campaign. Nevertheless, this is only the case because they've been pretty bad throughout the campaign, winning only nine league matches all season. As much as Arsenal fans would love West Ham to stay up and Tottenham's expense, unfortunately, Arteta's team have to play their part in that not coming to pass.

Many are calling this Arsenal's most important league game since Anfield '89, perhaps most important fixture of any kind since the Champions League Final two decades ago. Beat West Ham and only a managerless Burnley and a Crystal Palace side focussed on their Conference League Final against Rayo Vallecano stand in their way of immortality. It doesn't have to be five or six again, just win.

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