West Ham United: Martin Keown hopes Arsenal repeat Newcastle thrashing at London Stadium amid ‘hatred’ claim
Martin Keown claims that no set of fans showed more hatred when he was a player than West Ham fans and he hopes Arsenal win at the London Stadium.
The talkSPORT pundit believes “David Moyes needs to up his game tactically” for the Gunners’ visit on Sunday (16 April) since the Hammers boss has been repeating the same tired game plans for too long.
And he has backed his former side to follow in the footsteps of the last visitors to the Irons’ home stadium, Newcastle, in pulling out a big victory.
Speaking live on talkSPORT on Friday (14 April) the former Gunners defender said: “If Arsenal click and get it right they could turn West Ham over big time, but their fans… Listen, the local bragging rights, West Ham fans, the edge there.
“I don’t think I saw more hatred from a set of fans as I did from the West Ham fans every time I turned up to play, back in the day, at Upton Park.”
He went on to say he had been backing Moyes but has realised results aren’t good enough, adding: “The Newcastle game, the 5-1, that can’t be allowed to happen again.
“Can Arsenal go there and do that? You’d like to think West Ham are going to be learning from that, but I sincerely hope Arsenal can do that, because then they’re still marching forward on this quest to become Premier League champions.”
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There can be no excuse for a repeat performance of the Newcastle debacle on 5 April, where the manner of the defeat was so poor it put Moyes one result from the sack [Guardian, 7 April].
He got that one result with a win at Fulham last weekend, and needs to follow it up with, at least, a performance against the league-leaders back on home turf.
There can’t have been many fanbases who reacted to Keown with much positivity during his career, given his profile as a player, so it is quite a claim to put West Ham as the most hateful towards him, but it appears there may be some common ground currently.
Most Hammers supporters have run out of patience with the manager by now and it seems that the pundit has reached that point too, in what has proven to be a miserable season domestically.
There have been vanishingly few occasions throughout that campaign where the fanbase has actually had anything to shout about, with a week of relative relief about as much as they have been able to hope for.
But a win over their London rivals in this one, which would be a major spanner in the works of their title push, would be something in that regard at long last.