West Ham dig in to deny Arsenal and dent Arsene Wenger's top-four challenge

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David Moyes gets yet another result against the notional top six, with a 0-0 draw that sees Arsenal drop out out of the actual top six. West Ham ensured Arsene Wenger has now gone three successive matches without a Premier League win, and the truth is that – a few flashpoints aside – they never really deserved one here.

Moyes does deserve a lot of credit for restoring respectability to this side after so much difficulty for both over the past while, and could have had even more as Javier Hernandez hit the crossbar in a concerted period of late pressure. One irony was that Moyes wasn’t the only one who improved his stock, as Jack Wilshere had one of the better performances. It was just his luck, though, that he missed the best Arsenal chance of the game.

It would have been harsh on West Ham, as it said much that a quiet Alexis Sanchez was taken off before the end when Arsenal were so badly looking for a goal. One of the reasons West Ham are said to have been convinced to appoint Moyes was because they felt he thought he had something to prove again after three successive dismissals, and that they would thereby see a driven manager and one whose side had some of his old strengths. There was tangible evidence of that against Chelsea on Saturday, and more of it in the first half here.

West Ham were structurally organised, closing up most gaps, and looked capable of exposing the gaps in Arsenal’s side too. Wenger’s somewhat improvised side did require a few players to adjust to new roles, and it did allow the home side to get at them. Arnautovic even had the ball in the net on 21 minutes, only for his header to be ruled marginally – but correctly – offside.

It wasn’t the only time a genuinely revitalised Arnautovic caused Arsenal problems, though. Ten minutes later, he was weaving his way down the right and skinning one defender before nut-megging another.

That was just moments after Alex Iwobi had smacked the frame of the goal with an effort, though, in a rare spell when the game spiked into life. It otherwise saw a lot of Arsenal possession with little actually happening, although that was just more proof of progress from Moyes.

The fact this was mostly a bad game was probably a good sign for West Ham in terms of getting a result.

There were penalty calls at both ends, once when Olivier Giroud attempted a bicycle kick under pressure and once when there was a collision in the Arsenal box, but Jonathan Moss waved them away.

West Ham were still refusing to be brushed aside, but the pressure was building. Giroud had another chance on 53 minutes, narrowly heading wide, and the restored Wilshere was robustly winning the ball in the middle with some assertive tackles.

A bit of Alexis Sanchez force almost saw Mesut Ozil through on goal on 55 minutes, but his stabbed shot after a bounce went wide. The ball then almost bounced into the Arsenal goal minutes later after a Mark Noble break and a Petr Cech fumble, but Hector Bellerin was there to clear.

As against Chelsea, West Ham were weathering that pressure and thereby building in confidence.

As tends to happen, the danger with that kind of confidence at that stage of the game and against this type of team is that you will suddenly out of nowhere get caught. That seemed set to happen on 70 minutes, except Wilshere blazed a fine chance over the bar from just yards out. It was out of synch with his individually good performance, but entirely in synch with this match.

Moyes at least has this West Ham much more cohesive – at least against the top six. They’re still not out of that bottom three, mind, but they have left Arsenal a fair bit off that top four.