Gunners fight back for victory

Aaron Ramsey
12 April 2012

Arsenal scored twice in five second-half minutes to come from behind to beat West Ham 2-1 at Upton Park and secure their place in the FA Cup fourth round.

Both managers had one eye on their respective Barclays Premier League campaigns at opposite ends of the table with their team selections.

West Ham took the lead in first-half stoppage time when Alessandro Diamanti beat the offside trap, but the Gunners turned things around with late goals from Aaron Ramsey and Eduardo.

Even though Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger had made five changes from the 4-1 win over Portsmouth in midweek, it was certainly not an inexperienced Arsenal side, with the likes of Carlos Vela, Fran Merida and Luke Wilshere included along with veteran defender Mikael Silvestre, captain in the absence of injured Cesc Fabregas.

The Hammers - famous winners over the Gunners in the 1980 FA Cup final at Wembley - had come back from 2-0 down here to draw their league encounter earlier in the season, and started well, with Diamanti firing over after cutting in from the right.

Merida had a low, 25-yard strike comfortably saved by West Ham goalkeeper Robert Green after 12 minutes before Arsenal slowly built some pressure on the home defence.

The Hammers took the lead in first-half stoppage time when Diamanti beat the Arsenal offside trap to collect Valon Behrami's pass and slot in off the post.

Arsenal made a double change after 65 minutes, replacing Merida with Diaby and Wilshere for Samir Nasri. The changes seemed to galvanise the visitors, who had lacked any real penetration in the final third.

England goalkeeper Green could do nothing about Arsenal's equaliser with 12 minutes left, when Ramsey smashed a low shot into the far corner after collecting Vela's pass through a crowded penalty area.

Before the Hammers could mount a recovery, Arsenal had turned the tie around. Vela was again the provider, sending over a cross from the left, which Eduardo met ahead of James Tomkins to loop the ball over Green into the top corner.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in