Albion 1 Arsenal 3 - analysis

Albion's defenders have taken this season's song from the terraces, meant to inspire another Great Escape, and warped it into a telling comment on their ceaseless ability to cock things up.

The Hawthorns is desperate to believe not just in the miracle the team now needs to stay up but also the purist vision of manager Tony Mowbray to make elegance and style the core components of his West Bromwich Albion.

But they are finding it harder and harder to do so when the team continues to toss games away so cheaply by repeating the same fundamental errors time and time again.

Would the Baggies have been good enough to beat an Arsenal team at its own game? Probably not.

But it would have been refreshing to at least have seen Mowbray's team give themselves a chance by not offering the Gunners the same soft goals so many opponents have enjoyed this season.

So awful were these latest howlers, which gifted Arsenal an insurmountable 3-1 lead before the break, that were the culprits doctors and not defenders they would be in danger of facing law suits for professional neglect.

Albion's Premier League campaign has not yet kicked the bucket but it's looking pretty sick and Mowbray has to be careful the continued incompetence of the men at the back does not begin to infect the bank of goodwill he has deservedly built up in the last two seasons.

As they watched their defence continue its dereliction of duty, the fans were ready to turn. That they didn't was a credit to their patience and Scott Carson.

He may be a goalkeeper whose top class credentials some still doubt but a string of last-ditch second half saves were all that stood between Albion and a humiliating scoreline which could have spelled big trouble for the manager.

Mowbray and his coaches will again take the prime culprits – Messrs Zuiverloon, Donk and Meite – out on to the training pitches between now and the next game a week on Monday and hammer away at the basic disciplines which are being abandoned.

But that, presumably, has been happening all season and here we are, at the start of March, still writing the same reviews of Albion's wretched defending.

Last night's efforts, however, may have plumbed new depths.

Goal one, after just four minutes, came when Denilson picked up a headed clearance by Jonathan Greening and fed Nicklas Bendtner on the left-hand corner of the area.

The casual manner in which Donk then moved to challenge the striker, and the space Bendtner was afforded to cut inside and beat Carson with an angled shot, displayed a catastrophic lack of judgement.

Goal two came after Albion had inspired some hope with a seventh minute equaliser from a Chris Brunt free-kick and some general play which yet again suggested that without the calamities at the back, they might at least have a chance of winning the odd game.

But in the 38th minute they collapsed again as – surprise, surprise – an opposition set-piece proved their undoing.

In a replica image of Everton's first goal by Tim Cahill on Saturday, Andrey Arshavin arced a free-kick into that corridor of uncertainty in front of the keeper but behind the defensive lines and Kolo Toure ran through unopposed to head past poor Carson.

Zuiverloon was the defender who had allowed his opponent an Access All Areas pass into the penalty area.

And there was time for one more horror before the interval. Goal three six minutes later followed a routine clip over the top by Toure which seemed to so confuse Meite he was powerless to respond.

Perhaps it was a confusion brought on by his partner Donk fatefully playing the Arsenal striker onside; whatever, Bendtner's route to the point of execution, a fierce strike beyond a groping Carson, was all too easy.

The Brummie Road End howled its displeasure and rightly so. They might well have been joined by the rest of the team who looked aghast at the errors that continue to cripple their football.

Suffice it to say that the rest of this game was played out with Albion's main focus on damage limitation. This they achieved although not by any greater sense of security in their final third of the pitch but via the efforts of their goalkeeper.

He palmed away a 53rd minute Arshavin drive and then topped that with a point-blank effort to again thwart the Russian, both opportunities created by Bendtner's ability to ghost effortlessly by Albion's central defenders at will.

Bendtner would himself hit the woodwork with another effort while Carson kept out further goalbound efforts from Arshavin and Bacary Sagna before the match petered to its inevitable conclusion.

Mowbray and his players now have a dozen days to chew over this latest horror show before they face West Ham and they will be days locked in crisis.

He has nowhere else to turn in finding a central pair on whom he can rely and must try to repair the shattered confidence of Meite, Donk and the equally compromised Leon Barnett, who could not even make the bench last night.

Jonas Olsson's imminent return to action will be welcome, if only for his extra aggression and willingness to put head to ball, but even the spirited Swede has not been immune to the lapses that afflicted his colleagues again last night.

In their half hour or so of first-half parity, Albion showed enough to encourage those who still want to believe, with Luke Moore looking sharp and Greening back as a calming influence in central midfield.

But, without nailing down some form of solid protection, all the fluency and touches in the world will be worthless. Albion kept their discipline – just – and their principles although the timidity of their attacking threat after that first half collapse was underlined by the ironic cheers which greeted their first effort on target, from Marc Antoine-Fortune, after the break.

But how much longer Mowbray's players can go forward with optimism, while behind them there is such a careless regard for protecting their own goal, is a worrying area of doubt.

By Martin Swain.