Result: West Ham United 1-3 Arsenal
Date: 09 December 2019
Venue: Olympic Stadium
African stars Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Nicolas Pepe were among the goals as Arsenal rallied from behind to defeat London rivals West Ham United on Monday night.
Club-record signing Pepe earned his first start under Freddie Ljungberg, while there was also recalls for Gabriel Martinelli, Kieran Tierney and Callum Chambers.
The game got off to a slow start as neither side could carve out a serious opening, despite the Gunners seeing more of the ball in the Hammers' half.
After losing Hector Bellerin to injury in the warm-up, Ljungberg was forced into a change at the full-back position on 27 minutes as Tierny was taken off with a shoulder injury and replaced by Sead Kolasinac.
It went from bad to worse for Arsenal as West Ham took the lead in the 38th minute through Victor Ogbonna, who forced the ball home with his shoulder from six-yards out.
It took a while for the visitors to regroup, but they managed to secure the equaliser in the 58th minute when Kolasinac picked out Martinelli, who slotted into the bottom corner from 12-yards out.
The turnaround was completed six minutes later as Pepe collected a pass from Aubameyang before curling a superb strike into the top corner from just inside the box.
Pepe then turned provider two minutes later to pick out Aubameyang, who volleyed home from close range to secure his 250th career goal, while putting his side two goals ahead.
The third goal seemed to knock the steam out of West Ham's approach as the Gunners held on to end a nine-game winless run that stretched back to October.
