Read Gooner Fanzine print writer Alan Alger and his regular post-match series: Three Things We Learned.

Here's Alan on a trio of topics he noticed during Arsenal's strirring 3-1 comeback victory over West Ham on Boxing Day 

Unbelievable belief’ is back…

In Arsene Wenger’s first season at the club, Paul Merson was asked what our new French boss was bringing to the dressing room. Merse answered with “he gives us unbelievable belief”. While this unusual combination of words got a few laughs, it ended up being quite a profound description of how the players felt, even before a trophy had been won the following season. I definitely believe that Mikel Arteta has now instilled this in his squad.

We didn’t have the best of first halves and probably deserved to be trailing at the break, but the swagger with which we approached the second 45-minutes completely knocked West Ham out of their stride.

So much so that it’s worth paying heed to the compliments from one of Europe’s best midfielders, Declan Rice, after the game who said “they’re definitely title contenders they just smothered us in the second half and their press was amazing”. [Read more here]

The players believe that we could really achieve something and the evidence is in the calm way they turned this game around.

Eddie will always be ready…

Cards on the table, I genuinely don’t think Eddie Nketiah is good enough to be a starter for a top-half Premier League team. The way I’d justify this opinion is by stating that when he was slightly waning in his loyalty to the club, albeit when he wasn’t getting chances to get on the pitch, any feelers put out to attract new suitors received very little attention.

If you need further justification ask yourself this: if he was somehow available on a free last summer and hadn’t been at the club, would we have rushed to bring him in? Of course not. All of that said, he eventually delivered last night after a poor first half. I think he’s a decent wild-card and especially when the opposition know very little about him.

Think of the way Chelsea set up to face Lacazette last season then had late-replacement Eddie nipping at their ankles pressing (creating his great goal at Stamford Bridge).

My fear is that if he has to play for a longer period and teams work him out then he’d be easy to keep quiet. We can’t argue with what he, eventually, did last night though, and have to get behind him. I know every Gooner will, because he’s always ready to give his all!

Perfect way to bring Arsene Wenger back…

A lot of fans (including myself) are very quick to judge the club when they make a misstep or get something completely wrong, but I feel that they got the return of Arsene Wenger to the Emirates absolutely spot on.

Zero pressure was put on Mikel Arteta, the fans, the team or even the great man himself. A low key return and then a fantastic shot of him on the big screens rightly rounded off with a chorus of “one Arsene Wenger” from the crowd when we went ahead in the game. All the pressure is now off.

He can now be welcomed back with open arms and maybe some pre-match ceremonial stuff on the pitch when he next comes to visit.