Arsenal players have officially stopped listening to Arsene Wenger

Arsenal lost 3-1 to West Brom at The Hawthorns. The Gunners players have seemingly now just given up listening to Arsene Wenger altogether.

A lifeless Arsenal were beaten 3-1 by West Brom. In hindsight, it should have been predictable. The Gunners are in a bad moment right now. One that’s only getting worse. Plus, West Brom’s strengths, under Tony Pulis, are everything the Gunners lack.

Organization. Defensive structure. Mental strength. Toughness. Unity. A real team of 11 players beat a group of individuals. A group which, apparently, have now stopped listening to their manager, Arsene Wenger.

Everybody knows the book on Arsenal at this point. If you let them play, they’ll play you off the park in style. But if you can defend stoutly, make the game physical and pose a threat on set pieces, you have a fair shot at beating them. Whoever you are.

However, just because you know how to beat Arsenal didn’t always guarantee you would. In the past, teams would do the above and still narrowly lose. This season, pretty much any time a team does the above to Arsenal, they win.

The fight from Arsene Wenger’s team has gone. The players know the game is up. Arsene Wenger’s run at the club has been legendary, and his exit should be done with honor and respect. But it’s clearly time for a change now.

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If anybody doesn’t believe that yet, then the player’s actions are now screaming it too. West Brom scored two set piece goals in this game. In those set pieces, West Brom dominated like the Arsenal defenders didn’t know they were crucial in this game.

Did Wenger not warn his players that set pieces would be dangerous? Of course he did. Anybody who has watched a Tony Pulis team before could have told the Arsenal players that. A manager like Wenger sure will have.

So what happened then? The players aren’t listening anymore. Wenger has lost the players. Craig Dawson scored from two corners. Arsenal were set up to use zonal marking to defend the corners.

The one thing about zonal marking is that there has to be a desire from the defenders to attack the ball. You cannot sit and wait because the opposition get a run on a static defender. There was no desire. The Arsenal players stood around like they were waiting for a bus.

Arsenal and West Brom are probably the two most predictable teams in the Premier League, in terms of their playing style and strengths never changing. The scouting reports on both are out there for everybody.

Next: Predicting Man City vs. Liverpool, all weekend games

It doesn’t take a genius tactician to know what to expect from either team. The difference is one team listened to their manager and followed his specific orders for this game. Whilst the other set of players did not.

Arsenal stopped performing for Arsene Wenger a while ago. Now they’ve stopped listening altogether.

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