The sticky plaster of Mikel Merino lasted only seven days before the wound gave blood again.
His two well-damaged finish against Leicester only temporarily masked a problem that the Arsenal board, Mikel Arteta, his players and supporters, could all see in their direction after the seasonal hamstring injury earlier this month.
That is a gaping hole in the front; An area that has been avoided in several transfer penters and this season could now chase a third straight title-race heart sake for the club.
Until Bukayo Saka or Gabriel Martinelli will return next month, there will be many more displays, and the excellent center of Nottingham Forest Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic will lick their lips when they were launching Merino while they launched counterattacks West Ham did it .
The defeat on Saturday by a party that, under new boss Graham Potter, was well organized and astute in following their game plan, was not just the fault of Merino.
The statistics say so much: of the 20 shots of Arsenal on goal, only two were on goal. West Ham managed two on goal from a total of five shots.
That is miserable from the part of the Gunners. It reflects a bad performance in the team, where Arsenal had a lot of the ball around the goal, but no murderer instinct to score.
Nor had there were enough opportunities from a midfield that was impressed and struggled to pierce the opposition. It is often Martin Odegaard who offers creativity, but even the Arsenal captain was off the line, while Declan Rice lasted only 55 minutes and even Ethan Nwaneri was largely anonymous.
But the core of the case goes back to the need to play a defensive midfielder as an improvised striker.
Merino led the line in a decent way when he raged the deliveries against teammates and gave the opposition-aged line problems in the air.
But the middle back of West Ham was fairly comfortable with its lack of threat behind, and the Leicester -Brace seemed more and more like a deviation than a breakthrough.
He had a few shots and created two chances, but never really looked like scoring. And none of his teammates.
Before Havertz's injury, the Gunners were already very light in attacks with the injuries to Saka, Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus, so they cannot say they were not warned.
It was the ACL injury of Jesus against Manchester United in the FA Cup third round defeat on January 12, which sent the Arsenal board in overdrive for an attacker -but they still could not bring anyone better than a player who has never been in his life played in his life.
A number of names were investigated, with Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa the most realistic. But they did not want to break the bank for a player they were not sure it was in world class, and could not even find a loan agreement with short teams to endure them until the end of the season. Days like Saturday make that decision the entire poorer.
And then they went 1-0 to Jarrod Bowen's header. Who could turn Arteta to get them back in a game that they couldn't really afford to lose? Of the nine substitutes available to the manager, five were full backs.
The two attacking options were Raheem Sterling, who only started four league games in a loan spell from Chelsea that just doesn't work, and Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, who has never played in the Premier League.
The 22-year-old could not score in 24 performances during loan spells in League One Cheltenham and Accrington Stanley, and cannot be expected to dig the Arsenal from the hole they have created.
In terms of the Premier League title race on Saturday in some respects felt like Deja Vu. The 2-0 victory of the Hammers in the Emirates in December last season was much of the same, seeing a hard-working visiting side leaning back and seeing how Arsenal offers nothing that looks like a penetrating threat.
The home team made 30 shots that day, and that was largely also window dressing – 10 were blocked, 12 were from long distance and there were only eight on goal. Arteta is clearly aware, with regard to the Schottotals after every West Ham is humble.
This loss is a significant tripping in their search to bring Liverpool down, which had opened the door for a possible title race with their draws in Everton and Aston Villa.
But because Arsenal runs this race without a striker, it is the failure of January that will linger for a long time in the heads of Arteta and the Arsenal hierarchy.
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