This afternoon West Ham got the inevitable backlash from Arsenal's thrashing at the hands of Manchester United last week.

They weren't helped by having a lot of players out. The ex-Arsenal contingent acquitted themselves alright, although Tony Adams did make Kaba Diawara look a bit of a chump a couple of times. Little blame for the performance could be attached to Kaba and Davor up front though, there just wasn't any service. And at left back Nigel Winterburn, captain for the day, showed that he could have managed a couple of years more at Arsenal if Silvinho and Cole hadn't come along.

Their other veteran left-back Stuart Pearce didn't have such a good game. It was his feeble defensive header which gave Arsenal the ball half-way into West Ham's half of the pitch after about 8 minutes. It fell for Pires who slotted a ball through the square defence for Wiltord to run onto and hit across Hislop inside the left hand post.

Wiltord's second, and the end of the match as a contest, came 5 minutes later. He did brilliantly to pull down a punt into the box from Dixon. Despite losing his balance for a second, and the attention of a couple of defenders, Sylvain managed to turn, cut inside, and fire past Hislop again.

On 38 minutes he got his well-deserved hatrick. If the second had the look of Ian Wright about it, this like the first was a Henry type of goal. Again the offside trapped was beaten as Lauren this time slotted the pass through. Coming from the left this time, Wiltord couldn't get the shot in till Hislop had come out right onto him. But although Hislop got a touch on the shot, it only served to take a little pace off the ball, and it trundled over the line regardless.

We might have been hoping for a repeat in the second half, to help expunge the memory of last Sunday. But Arsenal took their feet off the pedal somewhat. Understandably so, once the win was secure thoughts rightly had to turn to this week's huge game against Spartak Moscow. We spent most of the second half with Vivas at left back, although Silvinho (not playing today) is said to be fit, he's not been playing (see this piece for mixed news on Silvinho). So bringing Ashley Cole off for a rest had to be the right move.

Good performances all round. Bergkamp looked sharp, and hit a few shots which just missed the woodwork. Vieira was massive of course, especially in West Ham's spell of pressure in the first half when Paddy cleared a couple of corners in a row.

But what really transformed Arsenal as a defensive unit was of course the return of Tony Adams. It's not just his defensive solidness, but that of everyone around him when he's on the pitch. Grimandi was a completely different centre-back to the Grimandi we saw last week. Tony also went on a few great runs upfield. One time when Bergkamp broke from our half after a Wets Ham corner, it was Tone who charged up alongside him, and if Dennis hadn't delayed a little before releasing it Adams would have been in. He also cropped up on the overlap on the left wing after passing to Pires. The Frenchman saw his run and Tony hit a fantastic left-foot (!) cross in. A defender tried to make a challenge but bounced off the Arsenal captain and needed treatment. It was nice to see the energetic Ljungberg fully involved again too, making up for Parlour's absence from midfield. All over the pitch though, it was the Arsenal players who wanted it more.

Edu came on for his home debut halfway through the second half, but didn't really have much chance to show his skills.

Ahead of us Man Utd scraped a lucky draw against Leeds, but the significant other result went perfectly for us as Leicester beat Liverpool. They've still got 2 games in hand, but now can't catch us with them at 8 points behind (see table.

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