A small protest outside the stadium this evening

FA Premier League
ARSENAL 3 (Smith Rowe 29, Pepe 35, Willian 90)
WEST BROMWICH ALBION 1 (Pereira 67)

If Nicolas Pepe and Gabriel had stayed at Lille, they’d be in reach of a title win – the surprise package lead the division in France and Mauricio Pochettino’s PSG have yet to find a way to muscle past them.

Midfielder Thomas Partey might be top of the Spanish league with Atletico Madrid.

Instead, they all found themselves trotting out for a late season encounter with West Bromwich Albion, a match which sadly for the Gunners meant far more to the visitors than a home side whose season finally creaked to a halt on Thursday night when the team could not find the net against Villarreal in the Europa League.

There is a very faint hope that they might achieve the base objective from any season: to finish above rivals Spurs but even that looks a very long shot, even more so as we watched Arsenal illustrate their faulty concentration against a Baggies side facing relegation.

Arsenal were essentially cruising thanks to first half goals from Emile Smith Rowe and Pepe himself.

Smith Rowe, with his first in the Premier League, volleyed in from close range after Bukayo Saka and Willian had worked it well down the left.

Pepe’s was even better, even if he was given more time to choose what to do than most other Premier League opponents would allow.

Continuing an encouraging end to the season, he stepped inside the box and rocked a sure fire thunderbolt into the top corner. Maybe there is more to come from him. He now looks like the kind of player that you might regret selling; the ‘good for somebody else’ syndrome.

But despite the ease with which Arsenal glided in front – and they could have had more had WBA’s keeper Sam Johnstone not stood tall – this was a performance which could not pass  without some of the ugly tattoos of Mikel Arteta’s shaky tenure as manager being revealed.

There was the familiar lack of focus, some dozy defending and 20 minutes or so where it looked like a team that had already given the game up were invited back in to drum up some Sunday night entertainment in the absence of Line of Duty.

Arsenal were trying to score a third when Kieran Tierney’s cross was intercepted. Away ran Matthias Pereira. We’d say he ‘ran from the halfway line’ but it may have been even further.

Still there were three red and white shirts around him when he flicked the ball beyond Bernd Leno. And in a flash, a team which seemed resigned to playing away at Preston and Peterborough next season were encouraged to have a stab at staging a great escape.

They chucked a series of crosses into the Arsenal box and the defending was now flustered. A better team would surely have made it 2-2. Darnell Furlong had a gaping chance to head in an equaliser but was criminally off target.

If you want to know how terrified Arteta was of surrendering the win, look at his face on the TV pictures when Willian scored a 90th minute free kick – his first goal in 37 Arsenal appearance. It was a beauty, a throwback to more productive periods of his career.

Maybe Arteta was shocked that Willian had scored at last, but he looked more like a man  running  on the edge of his nerves before the Brazilian’s wonderful strike.

Outside the stadium, protesters still calling for a change in ownership did  not just have ‘Kroenke Out’ posters. Some of them said ‘Arteta out’ too.

“Somehow this season we haven’t managed to get the best out of him [Willian],” said Arteta afterwards.

“He had spells and highlights of things he can do and today was a great example of that.”

It could have been read as an assessment as a season as a whole.

ARSENAL: Leno, Chambers, Saka, Holding, Gabriel, Elneny, Ceballos (Partey 76), Willian, Smith Rowe (Tierney 63), Pepe, Martinelli (Lacazette 60)
Subs not used: Aubameyang, Belerin, Nketiah, Odegaard, Runarsson, Soares

WEST BROMWICH ALBION: Johnstone, Furlong, Townsend, Ajayi, Bartley, Yokuslu, Gallagher, Phillips, Pereira, Robinson (Diangana 68), Diagne (Robson-Kanu 56)
Subs not used: Button, Gardner-Hickman, Grant, Livermore, O’Shea, Peltier, Taylor