Raya spares Arteta's blushes after frantic Rice right-back experiment

In and among the chaos of the London Stadium scenes, Mikel Arteta gave his goalkeeper David Raya a huge embrace. "It's the hug he deserves," said Gary Neville.

There were so many flashpoints from the game that leaves Arsenal on the brink of the Premier League title. While Callum Wilson's disallowed goal will dominate the headlines - there were two big moments in five crucial minutes that sent Arsenal to victory.

Should Arsenal go on to claim the title, Raya's stunning save to deny Matheus Fernandes the chance to put West Ham 1-0 up will go down in Gunners folklore.

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The shot had an Expected Goals (xG) rating of 0.54. To put it simply, Fernandes had a better chance of scoring than not. The odds were stacked against the Arsenal goalkeeper.

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And five minutes later, it was Arsenal who took the lead themselves through Leandro Trossard. It could have been so different.

The only blemish on what was a positive day for Arsenal is that it didn't need to be that close. In an already tense atmosphere, Arsenal stepped on the gas early on and should have gone in front - but Arteta's plan unravelled as a result of his own doing.

Ben White's injury was an unfortunate twist of momentum for Arsenal but it was how Arteta responded to it that made matters worse. The Arsenal boss brought Martin Zubimendi on and moved Declan Rice to right-back, removing the Gunners' key cog from the middle of the pitch.

Now there was honest thinking in playing Rice at right-back. He had done it before in an Arsenal shirt - playing 90 minutes in that role during the 2-1 win over Brighton in December. Rice excelled in that game, so why couldn't he at West Ham?

It ended up self-sucker punching Arsenal's early momentum and gave West Ham confidence. The Hammers improved in the transitions, with Crysencio Summerville running at Rice dangerously on two occasions.

A counter attack down the right, which bypassed the light midfield of Zubimendi and Myles Lewis-Skelly, saw Taty Castellanos test Raya into his first big save of the night. West Ham were back in the game, Arsenal were scrambled.

"The Arsenal midfield is now open and the right is not locked down," said Gary Neville at the time on co-commentary duty.

"It's obvious but I'd be thinking about getting Rice back into the middle of the park if I was Mikel Arteta."

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That was rectified at half-time with Cristhian Mosquera coming in at right-back, putting Rice back in the middle. While that was due to Riccardo Calafiori's injury - that substitution was probably needed anyway even if the Italian had not been hurt.

Still, Arsenal struggled and to his credit - Arteta changed it again, this time positively. Zubimendi - who only had 39 minutes in the tank - was hooked off for Martin Odegaard. The Arsenal captain's return to the team was vital, and he set up Trossard's winner with a classy assist.

"The one on Zubi was tough," said Arteta. "But I really felt that we had to put two attacking midfielders in that moment to generate all the kind of issues and threats and thank God it worked out.

"Martin, coming in, he had an incredible impact in the game."

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But still, Arteta's constant chopping and changing, not entirely his own fault but not handled in the best way, destabilised his team when it didn't need to. Mosquera could have simply replaced White and Arsenal may not have lost control of the game, with Rice in the middle of the pitch.

But in moving Rice's position, he effectively killed two positions, which was all West Ham needed for a foothold. At half-time, he had switched over his full-backs.

It all contributed to that Fernandes moment, where Raya ended up bailing out his manager. "If Arsenal hadn't won today, l think a lot of people will have looked at the 25 minutes when he played Declan Rice at right-back," said Jamie Redknapp.

"That was one of the biggest mistakes you could ever see a manager make at such an important time."