Albion aren't too cautious, blasts Alan Irvine after loss

Baggies fans and TV and radio pundits criticised Albion for a lack of adventure against the Gunners, who condemned Irvine's men to a third successive defeat without a goal.

But Irvine said: "All our work last week was about being on the front foot.

"It's really easy to do that on the training ground, talking about being positive and going forward, but it can be tough during the game.

"We started in that vein and we finished in that vein and there wasn't an instruction in between times that we should do something different.

"I would have wanted us to continue in that vein. To see Arsenal for the first 15 minutes being a counter-attacking team is kind of unusual and probably not what people would have expected.

"We want to have as many attacking options as we possibly can. The instructions to the full-backs was to get forward and, at the beginning of the game, they did that.

"When we have Graham Dorrans, Craig Gardner, Chris Brunt and Youssouf Mulumbu, with Stephane Sessegnon and Saido Berahino, there isn't a defender in that group."

"So it's not as if it's a team that's set up not to attack, it's a team set up to try to play through midfield and get forward.

"We didn't do it well enough at times. By the end it was a bit more back to front and we had the physical presence of Georgios Samaras and Victor Anichebe so you are looking then at a different way of getting from back to front."

Irvine insisted he wants the Baggies to play attractive football but admitted he will resort to a direct style if required.

"We will play whichever way has to be done to try to win the game but I would prefer us to have control of the game rather than play knock-down football," he said.

"But if the only way for us to win games is to play knock-down football then that's what we will do."