Mikel Merino's stuck lasted only seven days before the wound saw blood again.
His two well -taken finals against Leicester only temporarily masked a problem on the Arsenal board, Mikel Arteta, his players and followers could see the fall in their direction after the lesion in the ischiotibial of Kai Havertz earlier this month.
That is a hole in the front; An area that has been rejected in multiple transfer windows, and could now pursue a third heartbreak of the direct race for the club this season.
Until Bukayo Saka or Gabriel Martinelli return next month, there will be many more exhibitions like this, and the excellent Centers of Nottingham Forest support Murillo and Nikola Milenkovic will lick their lips when dealing with Merino while throwing counterattacks so West Ham did it.
Saturday's defeat by a team that, under the new Chief Graham Potter, was well organized and cunning to follow his game plan, was not just Merino's fault.
The statistics say it: of the 20 shots of the Arsenal in the objective, only two were on the goal. West Ham achieved two in the objective of a total of five shots.
Arsenal is paying the price for its inability to bring a striker in the winter transfer window
Mikel Merino is not the solution to his striker's problems and only briefly yields on the cracks
Despite his 20 shots against West Ham, Arsenal landed only two on the goal and lacked the murderous instinct to score
On the part of the Gunners, that is unfortunate. It reflects low performance throughout the team, where Arsenal had a lot of the ball around the goal, but there is no murderous instinct to score.
Nor were there enough opportunities created from a center of the field that was disappointed and fought to pierce the opposition background. It is often Martin Odegaard who provides creativity, but even Arsenal's captain was out of place, while Declan Rice lasted only 55 minutes and even Ethan Nwaneri was largely anonymous.
But the Quid of the matter goes back to the need to interpret a defensive midfielder as an impromptu striker.
Merino led the line in a decent way while defending the deliveries to the teammates and gave problems to the opposition line in the air.
But the backs of the center of West Ham felt quite comfortable with their lack of threat behind, and Brace Leicester looked more like an anomaly than an advance.
He had a couple of shooting and created two opportunities, but never seemed to score. And none of his teammates.
Before Havertz's injury, the Gunners were already very light in attack with wounds to Saka, Martinelli and Gabriel Jesús, so they cannot say that they were not warned.
It was the injury of ACL de Jesús against Manchester United in the defeat of the third round of the FA Cup on January 12, which sent the Arsenal board to the overwater for a striker, but they still could not bring anyone better than A player who has never played in advance in his life. .
Kai Hvertz's injury has aggravated his problem with the absences in the third attack
Losing stars like Bukayo Saka in the long term has derailed its impulse for the title of the League
Jarrod Bowen scored the only goal on Saturday when West Ham punished Arsenal's failures
Arteta was forced to resort to the little known name Nathan Butler-Yedeji, who had no experience at the higher level
The Arsenal Board was alerted to its crisis due to the ACL lesion of Gabriel Jesús, but could not deliver
Ollie Watkins seemed the most realistic name to bring, but they decided not on spending
Several names were explored, with Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa the most realistic. But they did not want to break the bank for a player who were not sure that he was world class, and could not even find a short team loan agreement just to see them until the end of the season. Days like Saturday make that poorest decision.
And then they were 1-0 to Jarrod Bowen's header. Who could Arteta resort to a game that they really couldn't afford to lose? Of the nine substitutes available to the manager, five were full backs.
The two attack options were Raheem Sterling, who has started only four league games in a Chelsea loan spell that is simply not working, and Nathan Butler-Yedeji, who has never played in the Premier League.
The 22 -year -old failed to score in 24 appearances during the loan spells in the one Cheltenham and Acrington Stanley, and you cannot expect them to leave the arsenal outside the hole they have created.
In terms of the race for the title of the Premier League, on Saturday, somehow, he felt like Deja Vu. The 2-0 victory of the Hammers in the Emirates in December of last season was the same as the same, seeing a working visiting team sit and see the arsenal not offer anything that resembles a penetrating threat.
The local team took 30 shots that day, and that was also a large extent: 10 were blocked, 12 were long -range and only eight were in the target. Arteta is clearly conscious, which refers to the Totals of shot after each of the defeats of West Ham.
This loss is a considerable stumbling block to demolish Liverpool, which had opened the door to a possible race for the title with its raffles in Everton and Aston Villa.
But because Arsenal is running this race without a striker, it is the January failures that will remain a lot in the mind of Arteta and the Arsenal hierarchy.