EPL Odds: Gunners Face Must-Win vs West Brom

Arsenal (-283) v West Bromwich Albion (+1000), Draw (+480)

Arsenal (10-4-3, 34 points) will be looking to end their two-game losing streak this weekend when they take on West Bromwich Albion (6-5-6, 23 points) at Emirates Stadium on December 26 in the 18th round of the English Premier League.

Arsenal are in the rough at the moment, having dropped to fourth place in the league after two consecutive losses. What makes it especially tough to stomach for the Gunners is that every other team in the top six has managed to win its last two games, snapping up the available six points and leaving Arsenal behind. At the start of week 15, Arsenal were the favorites to catch Chelsea. But now they sit nine points below the title favorites and only one point above rivals Tottenham Hotspur.

Both of their last two losses (to Everton and Man City) have been 2-1 defeats in which they fumbled 1-0 leads and lost late in the game. Against Everton, they dominated the first 45, and held the lead until the very end of the half. But the second half was a completely different story. Everton came back and outplayed Arsenal for the remainder of the game, scoring the winner late in the 86th minute.

It was a similar story the week after against Manchester City. Arsenal opened the scoring in the fifth minute and held the lead for the entire half. Then, once again, they allowed their opponents to control the second half and ultimately win the game.

If Arsenal are going to keep their title hopes alive, they must win the upcoming game against West Brom. A nine-point deficit is already an extremely difficult gap to close, especially when it’s against a Chelsea side on an eleven-game winning streak.

But even if the title is out of reach for the Gunners, they will still want to improve their standing within the league. Only the top three teams automatically qualify for next season’s Champions League group stage (fourth place goes onto a playoff) and Arsenal are at risk of falling to fifth if they slip up again.

However, eighth-place West Brom are a tough team to beat. The defensively-minded squad are not in the business of opening themselves up or playing a possession-based game. Instead they rely on the counter attack and set pieces to manufacture goals. It’s a system that Arsenal have struggled against in the past and the deflated Gunners will not have an easy time next Monday. I could easily see this one ending level. 

Pick:  Draw (+480)

Photo credit: “Giroud” by Lutan CC BY-SA 2.0 [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0], via Flickr.