Arsenal Vs West Brom: 5 things we learned – Mesut Ozil: Where art thou?

Arsenal travelled to the Hawthorns to face a struggling West Bromwich Albion side. Here are five things we learned from the 1-1 draw.

Arsenal laboured to a 1-1 draw against West Bromwich Albion on Sunday afternoon. It was a largely boring match that exploded into life in the final moments, thanks to a rather controversial refereeing decision and deflected Alexis Sanchez strike. It leaves the Gunners languishing behind Liverpool in the race for the top four, ahead of Tottenham Hotspur only by virtue of playing a game more.

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This was a damaging and frustrating draw. Here are five things we learned.

5. The win wasn’t deserved

Arsene Wenger will bemoan Mike Dean’s late-game decision to award West Brom a penalty. I, too, will bemoan Mike Dean’s late-game decision to award West Brom a penalty. But that is overlooking the general pattern of this game. The pattern of this game tells a very different story to a frustrated Arsenal.

For large sections of the match, Arsenal had safe and sound possession. Often times, it was with the back three or deep in midfield. But they nonetheless had the ball — they ended the match with 65% possession. But they created very little in front of goal: 14 shots and just four on target are indicative of that.

Ben Foster made four saves, all of which were relatively comfortable. Alexandre Lacazette did have a couple of nice openings, as did Alex Iwobi earlier on. But they were never clear-cut. This was very different to the Manchester United loss, for example. Arsenal did not deserve the win. They may have been conned with the draw. But they did not deserve the win. Speaking of being conned…