As the Premier League season heads towards it’s finish, we start to get to them games that are only important because of who you’ve got in your fantasy team. There’s nothing riding on them, a win for either side would be as useful as a reading lamp for Stevie Wonder, and they’re midweek so they’re just mleh. Typically, we have one of those on Thursday evening and it’s in the Emirates.
But before you switch over to Eastenders, there’s a Welsh wizard that’ll wave his wand to wake up the wiliest of Arsenal fans.
(We like alliteration.)
Does anything ever really change with Arsenal? They show so much promise early on in the season, lead for about six weeks and then bottle it around the second week of February. Then, as soon as they’re practically out of the title race, they start playing like Brazil.
After failing to dispatch of one of his footballing enemies in Alan Pardew, Arsene Wenger now faces another on on Thursday night when Tony Pulis brings his brand of rugby West Brom side to the Emirates. Arsenal have the highest pass accuracy at home of any side in the Premier League (86%), have the third meanest defence in the league (33 goals conceded) and the hottest attack (Giroud).
Speaking of hot, Pulis’ Baggies most certainly are not. Saido Berahino missing two penalties in the same game kind of summed up their campaign. They’re safe from relegation, have had the fewest shots (324) and the lowest shot accuracy in the division (39%). Think about that for a sec. Aston Villa, who are absolutely crap at football, have a better shot accuracy and more shots than West Brom. Sitting 14th at time of writing, West Brom’s season is fading faster than Pulis’s hair (yes, he still has some)
Aaron Ramsey hasn’t been seeing much game time the last few weeks but is in line for a start against the Baggies after returning to full fitness. With Alexis Sanchez netting on Sunday, he won’t score again for a few weeks. Mesut Ozil doesn’t score goals, Danny Welbeck is floating around, but look at Ramsey to open the scoring at odds of .
This has an Arsenal win written all over it. West Brom’s odds of are fair given how they’ve nothing to play for while Arsenal still have to pretend to be fighting for the title instead of holding off Man United in the race for fourth.