Express. Home of the Daily and Sunday Express.
Arsenal star Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain: This is the reason why we lost to West Brom
ALEX OXLADE-CHAMBERLAIN insists Arsenal's failure to defend set pieces is the root cause of their humiliating 3-1 defeat to West Brom.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain insists Arsenal's failure to defend set pieces was their downfall
Arsenal now find themselves five points adrift of the top four after Hal Robson-Kanu's effort and a double from Craig Dawson condemned them to defeat.
Dawson's two goals came directly from set pieces and he was left unchallenged on both occasions.
And Oxlade-Chamberlain insists Arsenal only have themselves to blame for not keeping the West Brom centre-back at bay.
Craig Dawson heading in West Brom's third goal against Arsenal
When asked what Arsenal should have done better as a team in the defeat to West Brom: "Headed the ball away!
"If you want to defend set plays you’ve got to be first on the ball. Obviously for the two goals we didn’t do that."
"We knew who their danger men were and we failed to stop them, which is really disappointing."
Hal Robson-Kanu scoring West Brom's second goal at the Hawthorns
"I guess we will look at that and have to review what went wrong.
"Dawson’s got the run and attacked the ball and finished them off for both goals. It’s really disappointing as we knew we had to be careful of him."
"Set plays are a massive part of the game and Tony Pulis’ sides do it better than anyone. We couldn’t deal with it today."