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Thursday evening signified the night that West Ham would put to bed a 366-day statistic. West Ham’s victory against Leicester would mean we’d achieve our first back-to-back victories since last year February.

Potter started the game with an unchanged eleven, and with good reason.

Ollie Scarles retained his place in the lineup, and he wouldn’t disappoint throughout his appearance for an hour. Todibo also demonstrated yet again why we signed him in the first place; a confident, quick-minded defender is just what Potter needs. It all feels planned!

And despite only playing 66 minutes, Jean-Clair Todibo gets the Org’s Man Of The Match tonight.

Regarding the match, a heavy ball dominated first 10 minutes, saw us average 86% possession of the ball, and at the end of the first half, we had 67%.

However, amongst the monumental amounts of pressure, we bullied Leicester, forcing them to be incredibly narrow while we utilised the wing play to good effect.

Our first goal would come through the Birthday Boy, Tomas Soucek, who picked up a simple tap-in after the ball was rebounded from Mohammed Kudus’ close shot.

It was dead and buried coming into Halftime as Bowen had his shot deflected from Vestergaard, which found itself in the back of the net

From the first play right up until the end, West Ham controlled the entire game, from the possession to the overall tempo at which it was played at.

It might’ve not been the prettiest of performances, it could’ve been three or four, with chances such as Evan Ferguson’s towards the end, but it is always a trend in Potters’ playing style for games to come to a close with a close scoreline, persistently with differences of one or two.

His thought process is simply, if we’re winning by two, why risk and push for more?

No passion or enthusiasm was shown from Leicester throughout the game, but a glimpse of energy was put on when Jean-Clair Todibo came off for Mavropanos. I suppose Ruud was hoping he’d start.

It can be argued that it’s 19th-place Leicester who seemingly will get relegated, but it’s so West Ham to defeat Arsenal in a wonderful win to then just go on and lose to a team that’s not on the same level!

Along with our back-to-back wins, it also marks our first home clean sheet since December 2023 against Manchester United…

Speaking of Manchester United, the win now puts us up to 15th [Joint 13th] in the league, while now on the same points as Manchester United and Spurs.

In other news, rumour is going round that Tommy has been trying to bargain his birthday gift for days off in a dodgy deal, causing major conflict in the club already! Potter has spoken to Sky and has confirmed the situation, he has said that he’s considering alternatives but, for now, is sticking with the weekend off which was initially planned.

More to follow soon…

No Paqueta, No problem!

Over the past few games with Graham Potter, we've been testing the waters with new tactics and have also been suffering with many injuries, which has caused us immense trouble.

After Brentford's horror show last week, today, Potter got it spot on.

We set up going back to a five-back this week, which was definitely the right call after the attempted four-back last week, which went horribly wrong.

Jean-Clair Todibo, fortunately, didn't step into the same shoes as Mavropanos before the match but did step into the starting squad, giving him his first start since his injury against Manchester City.

Ollie Scarles also lined up for his starting debut, playing an absolutely brilliant game on that left-hand side. It can well and truly be said that he will be saving us a lot of money in the summer, if this game wasn't enough to prove that he's able to start, then no game will!

It was an expected game, We know from previous games, such as the Aston Villa match in the Premier League, that we are most suited for a backline of five and play counter-attacking football utilising the defence.

Today, West Ham didn't just beat Arsenal; Potter utilised the squad we have to the fullest potential and put together a team that he knew could get a result. Our midfield of JWP, Soucek and Alvarez was perfect for the Emirates; they all were played to their strengths, four passes from each player entered the final third, and along with the attacking fallbacks, we were able to make the most of it.

In the 44th minute, we struck what would be the only goal of the game as Aaron Wan-Bissaka found space down the right-hand side and, from the halfway line ran to eventually beat his man, Caliafiori, whipping in a delightful cross to Jarrod Bowen who placed the ball into the back of the net with a diving header, not only making the score 1-0 to West Ham but in doing so, also knocked in his 50th Premier League goal for the club!

We couldn't tell if today we played AWB or if we played Wan-BisSAKA because I remember that a certain set of fans said he couldn't attack...oh how wrong they've been!

The remainder of the game would be a bit of back and forth with a few chances from Arsenal, but we got a lot more comfortable in our seats after Lewis-Skelly saw red for Arsenal just 17 minutes after coming on! What was initially given as a second yellow for him was quickly overturned for a straight red as he brought down Kudus after being dispossessed, leaving VAR no option apart from to send him off for denial of a goal-scoring opportunity.

Arsenal should've scored towards the closing stages of the game, but the curse of not having a striker seems to also be rubbing on them.

The win today retains us our 16th place in the table but now leaves us just 3 points from 12th, which could be achieved against Leicester City on the Thursday night next week.

A brilliant performance from Potters lads, three points and the ability to enjoy Match of the Day... who's presenting nowadays?