What a difference makes a striker.
And if Mikel Arteta needed more convincingly, that is not Mikel Merino, because the hope of Arsenal still took the Premier League title a fatal dagger.
With two match-winning goals from the bank to help the Gunners hit by injury past weekend along Leicester, the 28-year-old midfielder Merino received a first start of his senior career as number 9.
At the King Power it worked a treat. But we now know that that is a coincidence.
For 90 minutes in the Emirates against West Ham, for all his efforts, the Houtspaniard looked at its depth.
On the other hand, Hammers Forward Jarrod Bowen Merino gave a painful no. 9 101 – one chance, one goal, with the instincts of a top class prem Prince in the 44th minute to get all three points.
Merino will be criticized, but this was an all -round not – inspiring display of Arteta's men – invite Liverpool to make 11 points clear to in fact pack things.
They may have left injuries without a center, but their title hunt should not fade badly, and it only gets worse if all of this can collect arsenal.
It also helps to have 11 men on the field, one of their Achilles chopping this season.
In the 1-0 win at Wolves on January 25, it was a hugely controversial resignation of Myles Lewis-Skelly by Ref Michael Oliver, one that was destroyed days later.
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However, this was pretty clearly cut, given by Craig Pawson in the 73rd minute after a VAR monitor review, Lewis-Skelly-17 minutes after the rumbled Mohammed Kudus on the half line as the last man.
This was a welcome postponement for Graham Potter, who continues its fine management on this ground – a fourth victory in five visits – and a first pre -victory in five for the East Londonen.
West Ham just loves the Arsenal Bubble in Bursten-Hun 2-0 win here last season, Arteta finally cost the title. It might do it again.
Despite the lack of firepower of Arsenal, Potter returned to a five at the back looking for a first premium of his Hammers official period – and a first for the club this calendar year.
Rush Green Product Ollie Scarles, 19, got his first top-flight Start at Left wing-back, charged with holding a different teenage sensation in Ethan Nwaneri, 17, silent.
James Ward-Prowse was also thrown from the off an attempt to breathe new life into his career in West Ham after he was shipped to Nottingham Forest under Julen Lopetegui in the summer.
But all eyes were aimed at Merino. In real fashion with a tight lips of Arteta, he hinted that he had tested a few down-the-middle alternatives during the training during the week.
So to opt for Merino from the off, not that Arteta had seen a lot of choice Raheem Sterling's disaster of a display at the King Power rightly won a place on the couch for this.
What a surreal part of Merino's career. Considered a midfield flop in Newcastle in 2017, he arrived in North Londs in the summer as an adult Euro winner with Spain with a point to prove in England.
Six months later he leads the line for an injuries arsenal when pursuing a long-awaited prem-title. A discouraging prospect, but no one, it seems, Merino told that.
He was fearless in his approach everywhere and everywhere, who covered every blade of grass, perhaps sometimes too much.
The exuberance and excitement of a dog on his very first trip to the beach with a crazy smile and tongue that folds in the wind.
For a while it turned out to be effective. Against Big Lump Max Kilman, he won an early movie, threw a loose ball and almost got a ball from Alphonse Areola with a well -timed press.
But the early enthusiasm and the impact fade quickly. While his timing shoots in the box against a tiring back line of Foxes inch-Perfect, he was consistently a garden or two shorts on this occasion.
Leandro Trossard's beaten delivery over the face of the goal had stunned Kilman, something that Merino had not expected, and shortly thereafter the oblique cross of Thomas Partey could only get a toe.
Merino remained persistent, blazing in the nearby pole as he wandered offside. Are obvious limitations such as a center that grows more and more clearly within 45 minutes at the Emirates.
What Arteta could not have expected was such a determined West Ham defense, one that had simulated a number of comic circus clowns last week in their 1-0 home defeat against Brentford.
With such a solid foundation, Potter's boys could be more brave on the Bal-Aaron Wan-Bissaka galloped in the room left by Riccardo Calafiori on the right and cut the ball back.
A player of the quality of Bowen should have found the target, instead shine wide.
A warning shot for the hosts they have not learned from – admitted of a replica attack by half to see and tired legs when Jurrien Timber lost the ball just outside the box of West Ham.
Bowen gathered and wore and wore Wan-Bissaka, but it was the passive defense of Calafiori so that he could run out of half the line and run in a crossing position.
Fingers were directed all around when Bowen went in from a few meters. Gabriel should have cut out the danger, but it was rice that his marker Bowen had lost at the crucial moment – after he had covered land to run back with his old Eastern friend.
A fear-inducing half viewed with joy on merseyside, but with broken teeth in North London.
After the break, Merino continued to collide and a jump from a Nwaneri cross interswed, but Arteta had no one to replace him.
But changes were made only 10 minutes in the second half. Rice – to the joy of the Trreital end – did not look happy to be taken away for Oleksandr Zinchenko, despite his ineffective afternoon.
Calafiori also made way for Lewis-Skelly, but the 18-year-old was soon through the tunnel and faltered every hope for late comeback not that it once looked, even with eight minutes of injury time.
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