Arsene Wenger was disappointed with the defending on both West Brom goals in a bad 10 minute period before half-time, which consigned Arsenal to a first league defeat in seven games.
The Gunners took the lead when Olivier Giroud headed home a Mesut Ozil free kick on 28 minutes but West Brom replied with goals from James Morrison and a Mikel Arteta own goal in the space of five minutes to send the hosts into a lead before the break.
That’s how the game ended despite the Londoner’s pressure and Wenger said after it was a bad day all round.
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 were strong in the fight and they had 100 per cent commitment as well and you have to give them credit for that. They [the players] 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.
Santi Cazorla had the best chance from the penalty spot to salvage a point in the closing stages, but slipped and kicked the ball onto his standing foot and sent the ball over the crossbar.
Wenger wasn’t drawn into blaming the Spaniard.
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.
After the attacks in Paris last Friday, Wenger said both Giroud and Laurent Koscielny were focused on the game at the Hawthorns.
We are competitors. Once you 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. They [Giroud and Koscielny] were highly focused and had the desire to play. For me it is a game where we produced enough to win, and after that the influence of what happened, I don’t know. On my side, I would not explain our defeat by that. It is sad and we are all down, but when you are on the pitch you are on the pitch.
As well as dropping points, Francis Coquelin and Arteta had to be substituted for injuries. Wenger added they will know more in 24 hours.
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.
