Izuchukwu Okosi
Wolves, Crystal Palace Win In Other Wednesday Games
Second-half goals by Gabriel Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe helped Arsenal to the fourth place in the English Premier League table with a 2-0 victory over West Ham United at the Emirates Stadium Wednesday night.
The Gunners’ latest standing in the fourth place is the flrst time in 14 months that they will get in the last Champions League places.
Arsenal controlled the early proceedings, and their best chance fell to Kieran Tierney, but his looping effort was spectacularly tipped on to the crossbar by Lukasz Fabianski.
Martinelli put Arsenal ahead three minutes into the second half, latching onto a through-ball from Alexandre Lacazette and firing into the bottom corner.
Things got worse for West Ham when Vladimir Coufal was shown a second yellow card for bringing down Lacazette inside the penalty area albeit the contact was minimal.
The Arsenal striker stepped up to take the resulting spot-kick, but his effort was well saved by Fabianski.
With three minutes remaining, substitute Smith Rowe doubled the Gunners’ advantage with a low finish to the bottom right corner after being played in by Bukayo Saka.
Arsenal move up to 29 points, putting them one ahead of fifth-placed West Ham.
Mikel Arteta’s next opponents are Leeds United away on Saturday. West Ham will face bottom side Norwich City also on Saturday.
In the other Premier League matches on Wednesday, Wolverhapton Wanderers edged past Brighton and Hoves 1-0 while Crystal Palace and Southampton settled for a 2-2 draw.
Romain Saiss scored Wolves’ goal while Wilfred Zaha, Andre Ayew (Crystal Palace) and Southampton’s goals were scored by James Ward-Prowse and Alejandro Borja.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
