Nuno Espirito Santo has insisted that West Ham are going to be ready for Arsenal on Sunday, believing their relegation fight is even more important than the Gunners’ title challenge.
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Arsenal travel away to West Ham United on Sunday afternoon, and both teams could hardly have more motivation to get a result.
For the Gunners, the situation is simple. Win the next three matches, win the Premier League title for the first time since 2004.
With a home game against relegated Burnley and a match against a Crystal Palace side with one eye on the Europa Conference League final still to come, this game against West Ham is arguably the biggest obstacle left.
That’s because West Ham sit 18th, in the relegation zone but just one point away from escaping it. They can’t afford to drop any more points, so they need a win as much as Arsenal do.
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In fact, West Ham boss Nuno Espirito Santo believes his team’s ‘mission’ is even more important than Arsenal’s.
“We know it’s going to be hard, but we’ve proved to ourselves at West Ham nobody gives up,” Nuno told Sky Sports.
“We know we’re going to face probably one of the toughest matches that we have, we are speaking about a team that is playing really good, achieving amazing things, the final of the Champions League, they are fighting for the league title.
“We know how good they are, how talented they are. But we have our things too that we want to prove, we want to compete, and realise that the mission we have in our hands is more important than anything.
“The boys are working well, they’re going to be ready.”
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Arsenal have had a mixed record against West Ham since Declan Rice’s move between the two clubs a few years ago. The Gunners have won three of those games, 6-0, 5-2, and 2-0, but they’ve lost the other three, 3-1 (in the League Cup), 2-0, and 1-0.
The positive omen ahead of the game is that Arsenal have won both of their league games at the London Stadium over the last couple of seasons, so they’ll hope they can pull off another win on Sunday and set the last phase of their title run-in on the right track.