Arsenal beat West Bromwich Albion by a 3-1 scoreline yesterday, which resulted in our rivals confirmation of a return to the Championship.
The Baggies were in need of a minor miracle to save themselves, but their fat has now been sealed by yesterday’s result, which leaves them in 19th in the division, 10 points behind Burnley in the safe zone, but with only three matches left to play out.
For Arsenal however, it showed the fans that this team does still have some fight left, after their Europa League exit on Thursday had struck us a painful blow.
We dominated much of the possession, was created going forwards and was clinical in front of goal and we put three past the now-relegated side, and kept ourselves in the hunt for European football ahead of the new season.
With teams above us struggling for form, could we pull off a great escape and climb back into the top seven?
Patrick
Patrick- when reading your article, somebody who is either clinically blind or did not watch the game, or @TMJW of course, might believe Arsenal played well against a side doomed to relegation and managed by. Dinosaur more prehistoric in his views on football than Arsene Wenger. We did not play well, other than in patches. Until we scored WBA were by far the better side. Two very good goals byESR and Pepe should not blinker your judgement on a first half that we certainly did not dominate. The second half, we started well, missed some good opportunist, allowed WBA back into the game and were allowing crosses into outbox which should have allowed an equaliser with better finishing.
Ok- we scored the third, but do not tell me that was as comfortable a win as the score line suggests because it wasn’t.
We were very much second best at times. To a relegated side.Managed by Allardyce. ThT is nothing to be excited about.
The result was better than the performance but a welcome three points nevertheless.The WBA goal scored by the talented Pereira, highlighted our defensive failings.Apart from the lack of pace displayed by Ceballos and Elneny who had opportunities to tackle Pereira ,the failure of Gabriel to engage was shocking.I don’t know if it’s a lack of communication or understanding with Holding who was picking up the only other WBA forward on the scene, but this is not the first time that Gabriel has been found wanting.To compound matters I also thought Leno could have done better with the actual shot which was accurate but not powerful.I am not optimistic about our chances of turning over a rampant Chelsea side who are deadly on the counter attack but let’s hope we get stuck in and rise to the occasion.