Arteta laments 'two-faced' show

LONDON • Mikel Arteta said his side's Jekyll and Hyde display in Sunday's 3-3 Premier League draw at West Ham was enough to give him nightmares.

The Spaniard looked aghast on the touchline as the dominant Hammers punished his lacklustre team by scoring three times in the opening 32 minutes with goals by Jesse Lingard, Jarrod Bowen and Tomas Soucek.

Arsenal were in danger of a humiliating drubbing at that point, having failed to get out of first gear. But they hit back in stunning fashion to earn an unlikely point with own goals by Soucek and Craig Dawson and a late Alexandre Lacazette header.

While praising his side's response, Arteta was scathing about the way they started the game.

"I am very disappointed because I cannot accept my team to play in the manner as we did for certain periods in the first half," he said.

"What I expect is for us to play at the level we showed in the second half. We could have scored six or seven goals.

"We are all the time in reverse because we have two faces. The first face is about giving goals to the opponent and not doing what we have to do and it is not good enough.

"This game is going to give me a few nightmares because it is really difficult to stop some of the things we have been doing to hurt ourselves."

A share of the spoils from a thrilling encounter did little for either side's hopes of a top-four finish. West Ham remain in fifth but are two points adrift of fourth-placed Chelsea (51).

Arsenal's hopes of Champions League football next season now hinge on success in the Europa League as they are nine points behind the Blues down in ninth.

West Ham manager David Moyes said there had been "loads of positives" from his side's display, although he was disappointed that they had missed a chance to move level on points with Chelsea.

"It would have been nice to take the three points because it would have kept us right in there, but we've not lost too much ground," he noted. "It has been a long time since we finished above Arsenal, we have done our best to make sure they can't catch us. Now we want more, I'm greedy and they are devastated in the dressing room at not taking three points."

1 Man City 30 22 5 3 64 21 71

2 Man Utd 29 16 9 4 56 32 57

3 Leicester 29 17 5 7 53 32 56

4 Chelsea 29 14 9 6 44 25 51

5 West Ham 29 14 7 8 45 35 49

6 Tottenham 29 14 6 9 49 30 48

7 Liverpool 29 13 7 9 48 36 46

8 Everton 28 14 4 10 40 37 46

9 Arsenal 29 12 6 11 40 32 42

10 Aston Villa 28 12 5 11 39 30 41

11 Leeds 29 12 3 14 45 47 39

12 Palace 29 10 7 12 31 47 37

13 Wolves 29 9 8 12 28 38 35

14 Southampton 29 9 6 14 36 51 33

15 Burnley 29 8 9 12 22 37 33

16 Brighton 29 7 11 11 32 36 32

17 Newcastle 29 7 7 15 28 48 28

18 Fulham 30 5 11 14 23 38 26

19 West Brom 29 3 9 17 20 57 18

20 Sheff United 29 4 2 23 16 50 14

REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE