And Albion stalwart heaps praise on Rondon
CHRIS Brunt hopes Albion can repeat last season’s Hawthorns victory over Arsenal at the Emirates on Boxing Day.
The 32-year-old has been on the winning side both at home and away against the Gunners – but admits it’s been a while since the Baggies came away from North London with a result.
“It’s going to be tough, it’s always a tough place to go,” said the Northern Ireland international.
“We’ve not had too many good results down there since I’ve been at the club.
“It would be nice to bounce back after the disappointing defeat to Manchester United.
“We know we’re going to have to be at our best to get something out of the game.
“We’re expecting a team that’s going to want to go out and win the game after losing their last two.
“It’s a difficult one to predict because you can never be too sure what team’s going to turn up after losing two games.
“They play good stuff and they score a lot of goals so we’ll have to be very good defensively.
“Hopefully we’ll cause them some problems too.
“We’ve done okay against them at home but obviously going down there is a lot different.
“We’ll be working hard this week in training to focus on what we need to do to get something out of the game.
“Hopefully it will go our way on Monday.”
Brunt provided two assists for Salomon Rondon in the 3-1 win over Swansea and says the Venezuela striker deserves all the plaudits after grabbing his first hat-trick in England.
“He’s a great striker,” he added.
“He does a lot of hard work for us that probably goes unnoticed a lot of the time.
“He probably doesn’t get as many goals as he would like, or as many as he deserves, but we all know how well he does for us up there on his own.
“I was delighted for him last week when he got his hat-trick.
“Between now and the end of the season I’m sure he’ll be a big player for us.
“Hopefully we can keep him firing on a cylinders.”