‘We were completely lost’: Thomas Partey lifts lid on disastrous Arsenal start against West Ham

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Arsenal star Thomas Partey has delivered his verdict on his side’s disastrous start against West Ham United on Sunday.

The Gunners went 3-0 down after 32 minutes. We started the game terribly and West Ham’s three goal lead was completely merited, and if anything, they probably deserved to go on and score a few more.

Arsenal, thankfully, woke up after the third goal and played the way Mikel Arteta wanted us to play. A spirited comeback saw us secure a point, but the terrible start is a serious cause for concern at this stage of the season.

Partey was asked about the start and he admitted that all of Arsenal’s players were completely lost. He urged his teammates to learn from the mistakes as in the Premier League, we simply cannot afford to start the way we did on Sunday.

Partey: We were completely lost

He told Arsenal.com: “I think we could have done better from the beginning. They dominated from the beginning and we were completely lost. I think they came out very strong. They overloaded us on the outside and they are strong with crossing. We allowed them too much time with the crossing and that hurt us a lot.

“Second half, we made sure we blocked all the crosses. From there we started to dominate. We stuck to our plan. We know how to hurt them, we went all-out and everybody was fighting as a team. I think the spirit was high after we conceded three goals.

“From there, we started to give our all. But we have to start as we ended, in both halves. I think we have to learn from all these mistakes, we have to know when we have to go out strong, when we have to dominate from the beginning. It’s important in the Premier League to start winning from the beginning to be in the top. You have to start good and end well.”

Arsenal Insider’s view:

Partey is right, Arsenal were completely lost in the first 30 minutes.

West Ham are a really good side and we allowed them to hurt us. There are better sides out there and if we start the game against them like we did against the Hammers, it won’t be a surprise to find ourselves four or even five goals down.

The big positive has to be the spirit we showed after we woke up. We created chance after chance, and if we had a little bit of luck on our side, we could easily have picked up the win – even though we probably didn’t deserve it.