Arsene Wenger admits that he’s wary of West Bromwich Albion’s ability in the air and warned his side against giving away set pieces when Arsenal visit the Hawthorns on Saturday.
Since Tony Pulis took charge of the Baggies in January 2015, they have scored a higher proportion of goals from set-pieces (47.8% – 43/90) than any other team in the Premier League. That Tony, he’ll never change.
“West Brom have strong deliveries and they know as well that they have to be very efficient on that,” the manager told Arsenal.com.
“The best way for us is to take the game to them and not to be too much on the defensive side and not have too many set-pieces against you. I believe that overall we have been quite good defensively on set-pieces, but this will be a test.
“In the Premier League, away from home every game is a big away game. West Brom are in a very comfortable position, they are not under threat to go down, they have no special fear and they have talent.
“So of course, it’s a menacing challenge for us, but we have to make sure we are ready for it and that we believe in our game.”
On the plus side, the Gunners have a decent Premier League record against today’s opponents losing just one of the last 12 meetings and winning nine. We also have a 100 per cent scoring record against the Midlands outfit.
Let’s hope we can keep that up today.
If by “set piece” he means “rabid Pulisian thuggery” then yes, he should be concerned.
They play to their strengths – you cannot really knock them for that.
You can
Can you? Go check the score buddy….seems to me they prepared for us but we didn’t prepare for them…
A tough game were we could again slip up.
For all the big talk this squad is not confident and I am not sure that despite the talk of support towards the manager they are really behind him.
One thing for sure if we do lose today it will become untenable – I think the relationship with the manager is on a slippery slope already to the point where any perceived lack of effort or mistake quickly develops into a toxic atmosphere at the stadium.We shall see.
Is that so? I wonder how much he’s worked on that this week on the training pitch. I’d put my house on us conceding from one.
#Wengerout
Hey, Wenger knew Liverpool would start fast didn’t he? And didn’t he know that Bayern would have a lot of possession? And that Chelsea would be direct and powerful? Wenger knows everything mate, you don’t need to worry.
So was I wrong? The predictable nature of this Wenger team is pathetic.
Is Wenger going to start Giroud, Welbeck again by dropping Alexis? Just thinking.
That’s a great picture.
I think they’re cunts
Those guys are huge. I wonder if Sanchez managed to find his way out.
They probably all came together and squashed him
Let me guess… stick to the usual plan on getting our asses destroyed in the air while doing absolutely nothing to even try and prevent it.
No excuses today. West Brom have been poor and lost there last two games. We can’t afford to drop points if we have the dizzying ambitions of top 4
It looks like Arsenal don’t want to deal with reality. When something true but bad is said we are all like “ohh come on”. Accept the bad but deal with it.
Being wary of set pieces isn’t enough, you have to deal with them.
Ah hahahaha what a load of rubbish. Is anyone coaching this defence?
““West Brom have strong deliveries and they know as well that they have to be very efficient on that,” the manager told Arsenal.com.”.
Now fast forward to the post match blog.
It’s almost like these words to the media are just meaningless platitudes, trotted out week after week with absolutely no effort going into what they do on the training ground. Sick of it now.
Just waiting for Theo’s patented Monday morning “we must try harder” schtick on .com.