Eight placed West Bromwich Albion will host Champions League spot chasers Arsenal at the Hawthorns on Saturday, April 6, 2013, at 1500 GMT for a Barclays Premier League match.
Statistics reveal, that Arsenal have beaten West Bromwich Albion on the last three occasions that they have gone head to head. Not only that, they have managed to score a minimum of one goal in each of their last six visits to the Hawthorns.
Steve Clarke’s side started the league in fine form spending a few weeks in the top four but since then there has been an immense drop in form leading the team back to where they belong, mid-table.
This season they have managed to pull of shock victories time and again, the double over Liverpool being the biggest, but will need to dig deep to get a similar result against the Gunners.
West Brom comes into this game on the back of a loss against West Ham United in their previous league match, but has managed to win two of their last home games both by a 2-1 margin.
Romelu Lukaku, who is on loan from Chelsea, is West Brom’s top scorer this season with 13 goals. He will have a major role to play and is playing really well. He has scored five times in his last six home league appearances for the Baggies.
Arsenal have pulled up their socks and managed to put in a string of wins on the road. They have won four of their last seven away games.
Scoring late goals was usually associated with either Manchester United or Liverpool but this season no team has scored more goals after the 76th minute than Arsenal who pumped in 15 goals in the last quarter of the game this campaign.
Another wonderful stat is that the Gunners haven’t lost a game in which they have ended up scoring first.
Arsene Wenger will miss Nacho Monreal, Abou Diaby, Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere all of whom are expected to miss out due to injury.
The baggies will miss out on three biggies; James Morrision, George Thorne and Zoltan Gera are all going to miss out on this all important clash. Clarke will have to reshuffle his starting line-up.
Prediction: West Bromwich Albion 1-2 Arsenal