We won 1-0 at the London Stadium and moved to 79 points from 36 games, five clear of Manchester City with two to play. Burnley at home and Crystal Palace away are all that stand between us and a first league title in 22 years. The three points are the only thing that matters from a Sunday afternoon that was far harder than it should have been.

Ben White went off injured in the 28th minute with what looked like a significant knee problem, and Arteta's decision to move Declan Rice to right back for the remainder of the first half disrupted our shape badly enough to give West Ham belief they should never have had. Leandro Trossard hit the woodwork twice inside the opening ten minutes, Riccardo Calafiori had an effort cleared off the line, and we still went in at half time without a goal. That the winner arrived in the 83rd minute, from the boot of a player who had not scored in the league for 14 appearances, tells the full picture of what kind of afternoon this was.

We created three clear chances before the 20th minute and converted none of them. Trossard's first header from Rice's corner was well saved by Mads Hermansen on the line, and his follow-up header from the rebound hit the post. From the next corner, Calafiori's flicked header from another Rice delivery was cleared off the line by Konstantinos Mavropanos, with Malick Diouf and Valentin Castellanos scrambling the loose ball away. Eberechi Eze's shot from the edge of the area after the clearance skewed over. Nine attempts on goal in the opening 20 minutes and nothing to show for any of them.

The source of the problem was familiar: we were doing everything right up to the point of scoring. Possession was emphatic. The set-piece delivery was dangerous. The movement was there. Hermansen and the West Ham backline were under siege. The conversion was not there, and against a team fighting relegation, those early misses carried risk.

Everything. Crysencio Summerville's challenge forced White off in the 28th minute, and Arteta's response was to bring on Martin Zubimendi and push Rice out to right back. On paper, it was a logical move to keep a senior head in the defensive line while adding midfield numbers. In practice, it destabilised us completely.

Rice at right back meant Summerville and Diouf had licence to run at a midfielder playing out of position, and Rice looked visibly uncertain about which runner to follow. Zubimendi took Rice's forward movements from midfield, but the manipulation of West Ham's block that we had achieved in the opening quarter vanished. Tomas Soucek, who had been invisible while Rice was controlling midfield, began winning challenges and driving West Ham forward. Aaron Wan-Bissaka broke down the right and crossed for Castellanos, whose diving header forced a strong save from Raya. That was the closest West Ham came to scoring in the first half, and it was a chance that existed only because of the positional chaos that followed White's departure.

At half time, Arteta corrected the shape decisively. Cristhian Mosquera came on for Calafiori and went to right back, Piero Hincapie entered at left back, and Myles Lewis-Skelly moved across to the left. Rice went back to midfield where he belongs. The structure was restored, and the second half began with us pressing West Ham back into their own third.

The problem was that structure without creativity was producing sterile possession. Bukayo Saka was struggling to get into the match and skied a couple of efforts from distance. Arteta's frustration was visible, and the second set of changes on 67 minutes was the decisive intervention of the afternoon. Zubimendi and Eze were replaced by Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz. The effect was almost immediate. Odegaard drifted between the lines on the right, combining with Mosquera's overlapping runs, and the West Ham block that had held firm against Eze and Zubimendi began to warp.

In the 79th minute, Mateus Fernandes found space in our box and struck at goal from close range. Raya saved with his thigh. It was the kind of stop that barely registers in highlight packages but would have changed the entire title race if it had gone in. Four minutes later, Odegaard received possession on the right side of the West Ham penalty area, danced past his marker, and cut the ball back across the six-yard box. Trossard met it at the near post and drilled a low finish past Hermansen. The away end behind the goal lost its mind. Arteta sprinted down the West Ham touchline. It was the 23rd Premier League goal scored or created by an Arsenal substitute this season, comfortably the most in the division.

Trossard had not scored a league goal in 14 appearances before Sunday. His previous Premier League goals have come more often against West Ham than any club other than Liverpool, and the Belgian picked the right afternoon to end the drought.

In the fifth minute of stoppage time, West Ham won a corner. The delivery came into the box and Raya went to collect, but Pablo grabbed his arm while another West Ham player pulled his shirt, preventing the goalkeeper from reaching the ball. It dropped loose, William Saliba attempted to clear, but the ball fell to Callum Wilson. Wilson struck it goalward, the shot hit Rice, but the ball had crossed the line. The London Stadium erupted. Referee Chris Kavanagh awarded the goal on the field.

Then VAR intervened. Darren England identified that Pablo's arm action was prolonged and across Raya's body, impeding his ability to do his job. The review took four minutes and 17 seconds. Kavanagh went to the monitor, watched 17 replays, and overturned the goal. Pablo was not looking to play the ball. It was a foul.

There were multiple potential infractions in the same passage of play. Soucek fouled Havertz before the ball was delivered. Rice was grabbing Mavropanos. Trossard was holding Pablo. The penalty area was a mess of competing fouls, as penalty areas always are at corner kicks. England focused on the one that directly affected the outcome, which was the right call. Raya said immediately after the incident that it could not stand, and his certainty was justified. The goal was correctly disallowed.

Two wins from two remaining league games and the title is ours. Burnley at the Emirates on Monday, already relegated, followed by Crystal Palace away on May 24 with Palace's attention likely split by their Conference League final three days later. The fixtures are favourable. The points are in our hands.

The concern is White. If the knee injury is as serious as it looked, he will miss the rest of the season, including the Champions League final against PSG on May 30. Mosquera performed adequately at right back in the second half, and he has started there before, including against Manchester City in April. He will need to be ready.

We won ugly at the London Stadium with a late goal and a VAR reprieve, and we are two games from the Premier League title. It is up for grabs now.