Arsenal: 3 negatives from huge West Brom win

3. Players Not Found With Clever Running

It’s frustrating to constantly be finding ‘excuses’ for Nicolas Pepe. This is his third season as an Arsenal player and if he isn’t going to be hitting the heights expected of him and his £72m price tag now, then he never will.

But, he made runs on Wednesday night that need to be picked out sooner. Or at all.

And a lot of this stems from the right-back on the night, Calum Chambers, who hasn’t had the best start to life this season, which is surprising considering how he finished last term.

It was a mismanaged Baggies high line with little pressure on the ball that meant the runs in behind were always on for the front three. Greater speed of thought and technical confidence in a right-back, with agility and athleticism, would have played in the Ivorian time and time again.

Martin Odegaard dropping off into the right-side pocket cleverly opened those spaces for Pepe and it took Mohamed Elneny(!) to finally feed Pepe in which led to the second goal.

Chambers just isn’t quick enough. Fortunately, after the late first half flurry, the game was a practice match and all of the aforementioned concerns were ignored as the likes of Nuno Tavares spent the remaining 45 minutes more advanced than Saka.

Pepe put in a strong showing on the night. You just can’t help but feel in games where teams press high, there is more that can be extracted from him.