It is increasingly resembling the end for Arsene Wenger at Arsenal: this afternoon they meekly surrendered 3-1 to West Bromwich Albion, and are now adrift in the race for the Champions League spots. Absurdly, the game had as many banners attached to planes as it had goals in the first half: both on either side of the Wenger debate.
But after the first half ended 1-1, Arsenal decided not to bother turning up for the second: and it ended 3-1 to the home side, with Tony Pulis now scaling the vertiginous heights of more than 40 points in the Premier League.
After the game, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain apologised to the Arsenal supporters:
Jamie Carragher, however, had little truck with Oxlade-Chamberlain's post-game apology:
Will Oxlaide mention he should've been stronger & blocked Dawson for the 3rd from the corner rather than talking about someone heading it?!!
— Jamie Carragher (@Carra23) March 18, 2017
Arsenal's performance hit its nadir when Craig Dawson rose unchallenged to head home a James McClean corner to make it 3-1, and Oxlade-Chamberlain didn't exactly cover himself in defensive glory. He didn't even face the ball as McClean put the ball in, and utterly failed to block the run of Dawson:
The subsequent defensive mess was absurd:
Elsewhere on Sky, Thierry Henry delivered his finest ever piece of punditry, in explaining where it all went wrong for Arsenal:
Thierry Henry says he has never seen what he saw in Arsenal today. Not a single player showing commitment pic.twitter.com/qVsqqiZkas
— Dr. Admore Tshuma (@adtshuma) March 18, 2017
