EPL – What We Learned – West Bromwich Albion 2 Arsenal 1

Arsène Wenger, the Arsenal manager, faces a nervous wait before discovering the extent of Francis Coquelin’s knee injury.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger lashed out at his players after they lost 1-2 to West Bromwich Albion and missed the chance to take the top spot in the English Premier League (EPL) standings.

Losing the Frenchman for a long period would seriously weaken Arsenal’s midfield, as Coquelin has become their main ball victor and, with Arteta and Jack Wilshere also injured, there is no obvious replacement at the club other than the 31-year-old Mathieu Flamini, who has been entrusted with only one start this season outside the Capital One Cup.

“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”.

Following the game we took to Twitter to see how Giroud’s performance went down with Arsenal fans.

With a crucial Champions League game against Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday, Wenger says his side must examine what went wrong and quickly learn from their mistakes.

“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”.

“The only part where maybe we lost focus a bit was between the 35th minute and the 45th minute”. The same shoddy set piece defending came back to bite Arsenal and the game was level.

While a heavy defeat at Bayern in their last European outing could be excused given the quality of the opposition, there was no explaining away lacklustre losses against Dinamo and Olympiakos. “When you are on the pitch, you are on the pitch. The lads deserve it for the effort they’ve put in”, he said.

While Evans’ style is all about reading the game and covering anything played in behind, Olsson is someone who thrives on a physical battle, which made him flawless for dealing with Olivier Giroud and leaving Evans to concentrate on the space that the likes of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil operate in. “They are a very good side and this year they’ve got as good a chance as they’ve had maybe for 10 years to win the title”.