West Brom loss a setback not a knockout blow for Arsenal by Sam P
I am not going to try and sugar coat the performance or result for Arsenal away to West Brom yesterday. It was poor and it was definitely a setback in our attempts to regain the Premier League trophy that has been missing from north London for over a decade.
But I also do not think that it is time for Arsenal fans to panic or give up the ghost and think that the Gunners are going to blow it again. There are three major factors behind my belief that this is not a knockout blow but merely a bad day at the office that Arsenal can come back from.
1. It was one of those days and every club has them. Have you ever seen Cazorla miss a penalty like that? No and you probably never will again and that just highlighted the fact that pretty much nothing went our way all day. The good thing is that the current Arsenal team have shown a number of times that they can bounce back from these things instead of being sent into a downward spiral.
2. Man City and their thumping at the hands of Liverpool really let us off the hook. I still believe that Pellegrini´s side are the biggest obstacle to Arsenal winning the title and unlike our result, theirs was not down to bad luck but was caused by them being comprehensively outplayed and only Bayern Munich have done that to us. It definitely gives us reason to be confident ahead of our crunch meeting just before christmas.
3. While the injury situation is bad at the moment, Arsene Wenger is soon going to have the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott and the Ox back. And if Coquelin´s problem is a long term one, at least the winter transfer window is just over a month away.
Cheer up Gooners, we can do this thing.