Mikel Arteta manned up and took the blame for Arsenal’s painful 3-1 Carabao Cup defeat at West Ham, during which he made six changes to his line-up for the fourth-round clash, starting with Declan Rice on the bench on his Hammers homecoming.
Rice lifted the Europa Conference League trophy as West Ham captain last season and was back at West Ham for the first time after sealing the £105million switch to the Gunners. However the Carabao Cup will be out of his reach this season after strikes from Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen and an early own goal by Ben White sent the north Londoners crashing out.
“I’m very disappointed,” said Gunners boss Arteta. “I’m responsible for that, we’re out of the cup, we wanted to play a very different game and compete.
“The game took a direction because of the first goal but we have to see much more from the team and earn the right to win.
“I’m disappointed with myself. We wanted to play in a different way and we weren’t able to do that. Every time we lose the pain is there.
“We have to use this pain and this defeat to prepare the best way for Newcastle on Saturday.”
Rice was the only goalscorer the last time West Ham beat Arsenal, in the Premier League in 2019.
“You should have signed for a big club” was the mischievous chant taunting the 24-year-old when he came during the warm up.
Disceernibly, much of the build-up to the match centred around the reception the fans would give the England midfielder and when he was sent on in the 56th minute, the ensuing boos were quickly drowned out by a standing ovation from most of the home fans.
“It was a really good solid team performance. The forward players did a really good job and for long periods we were good defensively. For most of it we coped well,” said boss David Moyes.
“Maybe we are becoming quite a good cup team. I want to be a really good league team if I can be but if I can’t quite do that then we have to do well in the cups if we can.
“We have only won against Arsenal, we don’t get trophies for that.”