Arsenal women destroy West Ham
Arsenal women destroy West Ham Arsenal tore West Ham apart in a one-sided display that brought five goals, a stream of chances and a scoreline that still failed to reflect the scale of the dominance. The breakthrough came early, when Stina Blackstenius applied the faintest touch to a fierce cross from the left by Chloe Kelly , a move that immediately exposed the gap in confidence and quality between the two sides. Arsenal never really looked back.
They controlled the game from the opening whistle, created chances at will and spent long periods camped in West Ham territory. The margin should have been much wider by half-time. Kelly, Alessia Russo , Olivia Smith and Blackstenius all had multiple chances in the first half, with Arsenal repeatedly finding space and forcing the visitors back but blowing their final lines.
Two minutes into the second half, Russo made it 2-0 with a deft looping header as the scoreline started to take on a more respectable scoreline. Any lingering doubt over the result disappeared soon after. Smith struck the bar early in the second half with an Ezesque effort, but Arsenal’s third arrived in the 55th minute when Kelly found the opposite bottom corner with a left-footed strike from outside the box.
It was a finish of real quality, and by that point Arsenal had long since reduced West Ham to hanging on. There was then a lengthy stoppage after a serious injury to Eva Nystrom , who had raced back to stop Blackstenius when she was clean through. Play was halted for nearly 13 minutes before Nystrom was stretchered off, and everyone hopes the injury is not as serious as it first appeared.
Even that interruption did little to disturb the home side’s rhythm. 10 minutes after the restart, Arsenal had a fourth. Kelly seized on a gift from a West Ham defender inside the box to claim her second of the afternoon, a moment that summed up Arsenal’s sharpness and the visitors’ collapse.