WBA 2-1 Arsenal
Arsenal had the chance to take the sole lead of the Premier League this weekend with Manchester City losing at home. The Gunners never seemed to be in the position to bring anything back from WBA.
Arsene Wenger reacts after the game:
on the game…
It was a bad afternoon, we missed a penalty, we gave a goal away on set-piece, that is perfect to make your afternoon a nightmare and we missed open goal chances. I believe that West Brom they were strong in the fight and they had one 100 per cent commitment as well and you have to give them credit for that. But overall I felt it dropped a huge blow when we scored and we just had to make sure they didn’t come back with a easy goal and that is where we were disappointed today. But I cannot be mad at the team because they gave what they could until the last minute but we lost a bit of focus at 1-0 – at 35 minutes we were 1-0 up and then at 45 we were 2-1 down. Our defending on that level was very, very poor.
on Cazorla’s penalty…
I have seen a few but I don’t really know what happened. You can talk to him and he is so disappointed and it is difficult to blame Cazorla for that. We have to take it on the chin and bounce back in our next game. It is a big blow today for us as if the game reflects the result then okay but when you drop points when you have come out of a game and think you have not done the maximum to produce you cannot be happy.
on injury problems…
We have two more injuries. One is a muscle problem for Arteta and the other one is a knee problem and I don’t know how serious that is but we will know certainly tomorrow, for Coquelin. Arteta is a calf.
on the mental state of Giroud and Koscielny…
We are competitors, I believe in life they are disappointed like I am. Once your are in the competition you are in the competition, you have to be professional. I fought my whole life to know that when I am at work I am at work, when I am outside work I am outside work. That is what it is about. How much [Paris] affected them, I don’t know. I can only speak for myself. Our best players today, like Alexis, he flew back Thursday night and was not tired at all.
