West Ham vs. Arsenal score: Gunners' Premier League title hopes take hit after another blown lead

Familiar failings cost Arsenal dearly at the London Stadium

LONDON -- Aaron Ramsdale smashed the ball to nowhere in particular. Ben White hurled a water bottle to the turf in his fury. The rest dropped to their feet in bafflement. The Arsenal players were a mirror image of their West Ham counterparts 80 or so minutes earlier.

Mikel Arteta's players seemed to be fearing the worst, that this was the day that their title challenge had fallen apart, that these consecutive 2-2 draws from two-goal leads would lead to them being ranked among the Premier League's bottlers. Few seemed to compute that they remain four points clear of Manchester City in second, favorites no more but still clearly in control of their destiny. They were now hanging over the precipice that they had dragged West Ham back from.

As Martin Odegaard volleyed in Arsenal's second in the opening 10 minutes, West Ham seemed a spent force. Heads dropped to examine the peculiarities of the London Stadium turf while Said Benrahma, Aaron Cresswell and Tomas Soucek engaged in a verbal battle to determine who was the most culpable for the chasm at the back post. For the time being Declan Rice's rallying cries fell on deaf ears in the stands and on the pitch. This was, as David Moyes put it, "incredibly slick" football and he insisted that there was less fault to go around for his players than praise for the Gunners. "When we went 2-0 down I thought, my goodness," said the West Ham manager.