Andy Carroll bullied poor Arsenal and Twitter absolutely loved it

There are few seasons that sum up Arsenal's post-Highbury ineptitude quite like this one.

With Chelsea's title defence effectively over by Halloween, and both Manchester clubs failing to achieve any sort of consistency, the stage was set for the Gunners to claim their first Premier League title since the unbeaten season of 2003/04. Despite all this, Arsene Wenger's men have struggled and find themselves in third place, trailing Leicester City and North London rivals Tottenham. Coming into Saturday's game against West Ham, Arsenal fans had the faint glimmer of hope that an epic title challenge could be mounted, but it all went wrong, as Andy Carroll scored a hat-trick with goals either side of half-time to kill off the Arsenal dream. Despite Laurent Koscielny's 70th-minute equaliser, Arsenal sit 10 points behind leaders Leicester with just six games remaining. The surprising thing is that it all started so well when Mesut Ozil opened the scoring on 18 minutes. https://twitter.com/6Gooner/status/718771241008517120 https://twitter.com/RealRomfordPele/status/718771601651691520 https://twitter.com/Alex_is_Sanchez/status/718771290224599040

Then Alexis Sanchez popped up to double the lead...

https://twitter.com/GoonerGirl1969/status/718775788305326083 https://twitter.com/Mesutholic/status/718773753241563137

But a quick-fire brace from Andy Carroll meant the teams were level at the break before he bagged a third early in the second half...

https://twitter.com/gunnerblog/status/718779111364300800 https://twitter.com/Billie_T/status/718788356075872257 https://twitter.com/HarryCFC_/status/718785121235574784

The English striker was gaining a lot of attention for his unusual hairstyle...

https://twitter.com/elliotwagland/status/718778689694134273 https://twitter.com/m4tt/status/718769138626334721 https://twitter.com/DailyCannon/status/718783532684963840

Arsenal fans were quick to wonder why first-choice keeper Petr Cech had been left on the bench, with some questioning the decision before kick off...

https://twitter.com/gunnerpunner/status/718753936656769024 https://twitter.com/fkhanage/status/718753191282741248 https://twitter.com/patthegooner/status/718791048659615744

Even though Laurent Koscielny equalised with 20 minutes to play, Gooners accepted that their season was now about staying in the top four...

https://twitter.com/Tweet2Hd/status/718787639990689792 https://twitter.com/pvkichulo/status/718786777109118976 https://twitter.com/ArabLightening/status/718784701318737920