Looking at the last couple of seasons, Arsenal been dominant in this fixture, being undefeated in the last 4 encounters. Arsenal have only lost twice in the 13 games between the two sides in the Premier league.

Arteta’s brace through two penalties helped us grab 3 points at the Emirates earlier in the season, while it is quite hard to forget our last trip to the Hawthorns. We did our best to screw up our opportunity for Champion’s League football by letting Spurs finish ahead of us, before Fullop decided it would be hilarious to screw over his former club and gift us some goals in his only ever league game for West Brom.

The other game last season saw us beat them in a routine 3-0 victory.

Before that, however, they have caused us a little bit of difficulty, with them nabbing 4 points from us in the 10/11 season with a shock 3-2 win for them at our place, and us being held to 2-2 in the reverse fixture.

Statistics this season

Both sides’ defences:
It could well shape up to be quite a defensively orientated game, given both teams’ defensive records this season.

West Brom’s form at the Hawthorns this season is good, they have picked up only one less point than Arsenal have at home, from the same number of games. They have the third best home defensive record in the League, conceding just 14 goals from 15 games this season.
Arsenal’s away defence is, however, better; conceding 13 goals from 15 games.

However, with all that there is to play for, for Arsenal at least, it would be incredibly unlikely if the team is not geared up to score as many as possible.

First half leads:
It looks like an early lead could be key to this game, as neither team has won a game where they have been losing at half time in the league this season. Arsenal have only managed to scrap 2 points from 7 games where we have gone in behind, while West Brom have got 1 point from 10 games from that position.

Also; Arsenal have won all 8 games where they have gone in ahead, West Brom have only lost once from 8 games, neither side has drawn after leading in the first half. There is definitely a need to avoid the sluggish start that we have been shown at points this season.

Timing of the goals:
While the first half lead is important, both sides keep on pushing until the end, with more goals coming in the last 15 minutes of the game than any other period for both teams. West Brom have scored 11 of their 41 goals in this time, while Arsenal have 15 of their 59. As for the scorers, the Chelsea loanee, Lukaku has grabbed the lion’s share of their goals this season, with 13 goals. Their next top scorer is Shane Long on 6 goals.

Arsenal have a more evenly distributed combination of goal scorers, with 3 players scoring 10 or more goals this season (Giroud, Walcott and Cazorla), Santi taking the lead with 12 league goals

Form going into the game

West Brom:
They are in moderately good form, having won 3 of their last 6, including beating Liverpool 2-0, and holding out for a point at the Brittania. Their most recent game ended in a 3-1 loss to West Ham, with Carroll bagging a brace.

They are easily safe, and with Europe only a distant hope, they will be looking to get as many points as possible with nothing to lose.

Arsenal:
We have won 5 of our last 6 games league. Ignoring the “blip” against spurs, our form has been perfect, we have got results where we have needed them, combined with an impressive performance in Munich, momentum is very much where we would want it to be.

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