Arsenal captain Laurent Koscielny believes the Gunners lacked composure in front of goal in the 1-0 loss to West Ham United in a Premier League match at the London Stadium on Saturday. A poor Granit Xhaka clearance was intercepted by former Arsenal star, Samir Nasri, who fed teenager Declan Rice to score the winner in the 48th minute and hand the Hammers a first home win over Arsenal in 13 years.
The Gunners had chances to score, though, with Alexandre Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Mateo Guendouzi, and Alex Iwobi either being denied by another former Arsenal star, Lukasz Fabianski, or seeing their effort sail narrowly wide of goal. This wasteful nature in front of goal led Koscielny to plead with the club’s attacking players to not overthink their play in the final third.
“I think in the final third we needed to keep more calm and not try to find the final ball and to continue to play with movement,” Koscielny said in his post-match comments. “In the second half we didn’t stop but conceded the goal early. We had some chances and we didn’t score. It is difficult to win if you don’t score. We need to keep our ambition and our game. We can come back.”
He added: “We needed to be clean with the ball and we weren’t. In football if you give a small chance to your opponent you pay and today we did. When you are arriving towards Christmas you know it is a big period and it is hard to compete at the same level. We started the new year with a win and we prepared for this game and came here with ambition for three points but we need to keep calm and focused on how we want to play.”
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