Football
PA Sport 9y

West Brom boss Tony Pulis: Players deserve credit for 13th finish

West Brom manager Tony Pulis named an unchanged XI from their midweek win over champions Chelsea and said that his players lacked freshness as they fell to a 4-1 defeat to Arsenal.

Theo Walcott, who has battled back from a serious knee injury, cracked in the opening goal after just four minutes, and then quickly doubled Arsenal's lead before Jack Wilshere, on his 100th league appearance, volleyed in a superb third.

Walcott completed his hat-trick on 37 minutes with a close-range tap in to end the match as a contest before half-time.

Gareth McAuley headed a consolation for the Baggies just before the hour, but Pulis shouldered the blame for the poor finish to an otherwise good season.

He said: "If anybody needs to take any criticism then it's most probably me. The Chelsea game took a lot out of the players, so maybe I should have freshened it up as they might have run out of steam a little bit.''

Pulis may have performed another minor miracle in keeping West Brom up bearing in mind the state the club was in when he took over from Alan Irvine in January, but he is not intending to take any hard-earned rest just yet.

"Look ahead to next season? I am looking ahead to 6am to get down to Tower Bridge to jump in a boat to row across the Channel, with seven days in a boat now for charity,'' he said.

"This has probably been the toughest job I have had for all sort of reasons, but the players have been fantastic because to get to 44 points, to finish 13th is brilliant, it's absolutely brilliant and they deserve a lot of credit.''

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