Arsenal 1 West Brom 0
A late Olivier Giroud header ensured Arsenal bounced back from consecutive defeats on a nervy afternoon in north London that will have done little to convince Arsène Wenger that his side have what it takes to haul themselves back into the race for the title.
With three minutes remaining the match seemed to be drifting towards a stalemate thanks in no small part to the heroics of the West Bromwich Albion goalkeeper, Ben Foster.
Arsenal supporters had already started filing towards the exits in frustration at another disappointing performance when Hector Bellerín picked out Mesut Özil on the left flank and his ball in was met by a looping header from Giroud that left Foster grasping at thin air.
It was a hard blow for West Brom to take after a solid defensive display but, with a promising set of fixtures to come, Wenger will now be hoping the defeats against Everton and Manchester City can be consigned to history.
In the absence of the injured Theo Walcott Giroud was selected to make his first Premier League start of the season as Arsenal sought to bury the disappointment of their two pre-Christmas trips to the north west. They could have picked easier opponents than Tony Pulis’s battle-hardened side, however, even if West Brom’s excellent start to the season has slowed down in recent weeks following defeats at Chelsea and Manchester United.
As expected, the pattern of play did not take long to set in, with West Brom’s defence retreating to the line of the penalty area, shielded by a five-man midfield, and Salomón Rondón ploughing a lone furrow up front. Faced with the reinforced wall of white and blue Arsenal struggled to create anything meaningful in the opening exchanges; Giroud took aim from distance but fired well over.
Alexis Sánchez was the next to try his luck but could not hit the target either. In the buildup to this match, Wenger had spoken about the importance of his players confronting the pressure under which they now find themselves. Yet while Granit Xhaka looked to have got over the strange bout of nervousness he showed against City, Özil was once more on the periphery of things despite his side’s almost total domination of the ball.
Too many times the German World Cup winner was the culprit when Arsenal’s attacks broke down on the edge of the box and he increasingly drifted out of the game as the first half wore on.
West Brom managed to eke out a shot on target with almost their first attack of the game just after the half-hour when Nacer Chadli found space on the left. His cross picked out Rondón and a deft back-header could easily have found the net if it had been a yard either side of Petr Cech.
Sánchez forced Foster into action for the first time within 60 seconds when he finally escaped the clutches of Craig Dawson.
Things simply had to improve after the break and thankfully, despite Giroud conceding a free-kick for clattering into Claudio Yacob only three seconds after the kick-off, they did. An intricate move involving Bellerín found some space for Alex Iwobi and his volley was turned away by Foster, who then managed to block the follow-up effort from Sánchez.
From the resulting corner West Brom failed to clear and another effort from the Chile forward cannoned back off the post.
Foster has been outstanding this season and the two saves he produced to thwart Sánchez and Giroud must have left Wenger cursing his luck on the touchline. The first, an excellent tip over off a powerful drive from just outside the area, produced a round of applause even from the Arsenal supporters but it was the second – a brilliant reaction with his foot after the Frenchman was played in by Özil – that was world-class.
At the other end Yacob snatched at the chance that West Brom had been waiting for all afternoon when Cech failed to gather a corner.
Wenger threw on Lucas Pérez, Nacho Monreal and Aaron Ramsey in the hope of changing things and the former was inches away from forcing the breakthrough. It seemed that might be it until Giroud’s late intervention broke West Brom’s hearts.
