Arsenal exited the EFL Cup with a whimper as a ruthless West Ham United punched their ticket to the quarter-finals with a 3-1 victory over their capital rivals at the London Stadium.
Despite dominating the first half in terms of shots and possession, Mikel Arteta's side went into the break trailing to a Ben White own goal and were painful to watch in the second period, where Mohammed Kudus and Jarrod Bowen also contributed to a magical Stratford evening for the Europa Conference League winners before Martin Odegaard's last-gasp consolation.
Arsenal had booked their ticket to the London Stadium courtesy of Reiss Nelson's winner against Brentford, and the Englishman very nearly had an assist to his name in the ninth minute as his free kick floated into the mixer for Kai Havertz, whose header was acrobatically tipped over by ex-Gunner Lukasz Fabianski.
White was the next Arsenal man to have a header of significance in the 16th minute, but unfortunately for the right-back, it was at the wrong end of the field, as he nodded Bowen's corner into his own net at the near post.
Aaron Ramsdale, who left his goal vacated as he came to punch and missed, remonstrated with referee Simon Hooper having felt that Tomas Soucek was tugging on his shirt - replays showed he had a strong case - but with no VAR in play until the semi-finals, the Hammers' goal was allowed to stand.
David Moyes's pressed Arsenal relentlessly as the Gunners tried to play out from the back, but the hosts committed several needless fouls to cede a spate of set-pieces, one of which saw Eddie Nketiah skim the roof of the net with another header from a 25th-minute corner.
The hosts did not have a single shot on target in the opening period, but that all changed just 20 seconds after the restart, as Lucas Paqueta threaded a ball through to Bowen, but Ramsdale's gloves took the sting out of his chip before White cleared the danger.
However, Ramsdale was powerless to deny the Irons their second in the 50th minute, as Nayef Aguerd picked out Kudus with an incredible cross-field pass, and the Ghanaian's exquisite first touch opened up the angle for him to steer a low drive into the far corner.
A timid Arsenal showed little desire to claw their way back into the contest, and Bowen duly hammered the final nail into their coffin on the hour mark, as his drive from outside the D deflected off of Jakub Kiwior and deceived Ramsdale, who flapped at the ball and could only help it on its way into the corner.
Despite the tie seemingly being a foregone conclusion, Arteta did not hesitate to send on the cavalry of Odegaard, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Declan Rice, the latter of whom was given a warm welcome by the majority of the West Ham faithful.
Odegaard finished from a tight angle with virtually the last kick of the game to wipe out the hosts' clean sheet, but Arsenal's celebrations were understandably muted as Moyes got one over his former Everton colleague.
The Gunners have two full days to dissect their cup elimination before meeting Newcastle United at St James' Park in the Premier League on Saturday evening, while West Ham prepare for another London derby with Brentford on November 4. body check tags ::
