Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has given a frank and honest assessment of our performance against West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
Speaking to the Official Site as he met with the media following the three one defeat at The Hawthorns, Oxlade-Chamberlain knew it had been an incredibly frustrating day for the side as despite our possession we just didn’t threaten Ben Foster enough on the day.
Three attempts on target to be exact going off the match stats from the tie.
With the substitution of Petr Cech and the injury sustained by Alexis Sanchez, a bad day certainly got worse with the final result, and Ox knew it was again simply not good enough and he apologised to the travelling fans for their disappointment on the day.
‘We`re very disappointed. In the first half, I felt it was very comfortable for us, and we just had to be careful of them on the counter-attack and on set plays. They scored from a set play but we responded quite quickly and for the rest of the half, I felt we controlled it. It felt like it was a matter of time until we broke them down. And then in the second half, they came out with a different attitude – they pressed us higher and made it a lot harder for us. The second goal was disappointing. I can`t really remember what happened but it was a bit scrappy. Then again, we let ourselves down on a set piece. West Brom made it really tough and defended really well from then on. Ultimately it`s a really disappointing day for us.’
Asked about what he felt the Arsenal team could’ve and should’ve done better on the day, the England international went on to explain.
‘Headed the ball away. When you`re defending set plays, you`ve got to be first to the ball. For the two goals, we didn`t do that. We knew who their dangermen were and we failed to stop them, which is really disappointing. We`ll look at that and we`ll have to review what went wrong. Dawson`s got the run and he`s attacked the ball really well for both goals and he`s finished them off. It`s really disappointing because we knew we had to be careful of him. Set plays are what Tony Pulis` sides do better than anyone. We knew that and we failed to deal with it today.’
As for moving forward now, it’s not just the disappointment to deal with, it more than restarts talk about Wenger’s future and we also find ourselves five points off the Champions League spots and games are running out and our form isn’t improving.
‘It`s not what we needed. We knew we needed three points and we need as many points as we can get, especially in these games. We`re bitterly disappointed and all I can say is we`re sorry to the fans because that`s not acceptable for Arsenal Football Club to lose the way we did today. We`ve just got to try to get over this now and focus. We`ve got to keep fighting because it`s not been pretty for us recently and I`m sure it`s not going to get any easier anytime soon. We`ve just got to try and fight our way out of this.’
