Arsene Wenger finally conceded defeat in the title race after claiming that the 3-3 draw with West Ham has left them with a huge gap to close. Leicester City were able to increase their lead to 13 points after a win over Sunderland.
Arsenal fans and players were still feeling confident about the title going into the match at Upton Park. For the opening 35 minutes, it looked like they would reduce the deficit at the top to just seven points. Mesut Ozil opened the scoring inside 20 minutes before Alexis Sanchez provided a second goal cushion.
Iwobi created both goals for Arsenal in a dominant half an hour of football. However, things changed dramatically when Andy Carroll pulled one back with only minutes to go before the half-time whistle. Amazingly, West Ham were level deep into injury time of the first half. Going into the break after having thrown away a two-goal lead seemed to destroy Arsenal’s morale, as they were a shadow of the team in the second half. West Ham continued their dominance and took the lead through Carroll, who completed a brilliant hat-trick to boost his chances of featuring in the England national team in the Euro 2016, in the 52nd minute.
Laurent Koscielny’s goal in the 70th minute helped prevent a defeat, but the title has already been lost.“Third in the league, that’s not where we want to be. We’ve made it much more difficult for ourselves to win the championship but we have to keep going and hope. You never know what can happen. We have to look behind us, clubs are chasing us, we have to be serious and focus on finishing as high as possible. It’s one of the places you feel guilty to drop points,” said the Frenchman after the game.