However, Arsenal were dealt a blow in the 14th minute when Francis Coquelin picked up an injury and had to be replaced by Mikel Arteta.
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Arsenal need a home victory over the Croats, and an Olympiakos defeat at Bayern Munich, to retain any hope of progressing and Wenger does not expect any of his injured players back to provide a timely boost.
West Bromwich Albion caused an upset win over Arsenal on Saturday. The young Poland worldwide was said to be Arsenal’s back up defensive midfielder but ever since he signed for the club, he has only made one appearance, as a sub in the disgraceful defeat to Sheffield Wednesday.
“When you think of the players they’ve got to come in and the players they had missing – Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, there’s loads of them you wouldn’t mind having”.
Pulis finds himself in familiar territory at the Hawthorns, the centre of a debate scarily similar to his final season at Stoke.
Olivier Giroud headed Arsenal into the lead in the 28th minute but seven minutes later James Morrison was allowed to run on to a free-kick by Chris Brunt and volley into the net from 10 yards. We thought he’d have a struggle against Bellerin with his pace.
Despite enjoying 73% of the overall possession, Arsenal failed to breach the home side’s goal and had themselves to blame as Joel Campbell and Santi Cazorla squandered great opportunities to equalise. Can Wenger motivate this team towards a title pursuit?
He said: “I have seen a few but I don’t really know what happened”. “That’s where we have to mature. Instead of pushing on we became vulnerable”.
“At 1-0 we had just to make sure they did not come back with an easy goal and that’s where we were guilty, because apart from that I cannot fault the team who gave what they could until the last minute”.
Wenger says defender Koscielny, in particular, appeared affected in Tuesday’s match with England at Wembley.
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“We knew what to expect, but we were defensively not at our usual level and we were unfortunate in attack, because we missed a lot of chances”. It is frustrating, it is disappointing and what you want is to learn from a game you didn’t deserve to lose.
