Alan Irvine: 'Arsenal are vulnerable'

Alan Irvine has told his West Bromwich Albion team that Arsenal are there for the taking ahead of this afternoon's clash at The Hawthorns.

The Gunners lost 2-1 to Manchester United last weekend in a result that confirmed their worst start to a league season for 32 years.

Arsene Wenger's tactics have been called into question in recent weeks, and Irvine hopes that the Baggies can be the latest team to use the Frenchman's attacking philosophy against him.

"They play in such an open and expansive way," he told reporters. "They get so many players forward. On the one hand that gives you a huge problem dealing with all those players because I can give you video clip after video clip where they have eight players in the final third.

"That only leaves three [in deeper positions] and one of them is a goalkeeper, so straight away you can see the difficulties they've got and how you can break out and hurt them.

"But you've got to stop them first and Arsene's philosophy has been, 'we attack and in order to be effective we have to commit a lot of players forward'. What's a strength for Arsenal can also be a weakness but you've got to get the ball first and stop them from doing what they're so good at, which is opening teams up."

Kickoff in the West Midlands is scheduled for 12.45pm, with Arsenal eighth in the table, five places above Irvine and co.