Arsenal win means nothing: Hodgson

West Brom boss Roy Hodgson says his side’s victory at the Emirates earlier this season will have no impact when Arsenal visit the Hawthorns.

Promoted West Brom scored an unlikely 3-2 win away to Arsenal in September under former manager Roberto Di Matteo.

But results declined since and Hodgson took over from the sacked Di Matteo in February with the team now battling to avoid relegation from the English Premier League.

Hodgson – who was himself sacked from Liverpool earlier in the season – is hoping that his players will have taken advantage of a free week to prepare for Saturday’s daunting visit of Arsenal.

“It’s in the past (the 3-2 victory), I don’t involve myself in the past and I certainly don’t believe what you’ve done in that past helps what you do in the future,” Hodgson said.

“This is a new game, a fresh group of players and I don’t even know how our team tomorrow will compare to the team that beat Arsenal.”

“But we’ve had a free weekend when one can go and watch a game rather than prepare a game for yourself.”

“It is useful at this stage to have a couple of weeks to do a bit more training, to do a bit more work with the players.”

Hodgson also added that the break could potentially have disrupted West Brom’s good recent run of form – they have won one and drawn two of his three matches in charge.

“Sometimes when you are on a good run of results you want to keep playing as quickly as possible and not have long breaks between games, so I guess our performance will show whether it was an advantage or disadvantageous,” he said.

The Baggies will be without several key players for the fixture.

Scotland midfielder Graham Dorrans misses out with an ankle injury, on loan Carlos Vela is unable to play against his parent club and captain Chris Brunt is in doubt after he was sent home from training with a fever on Friday afternoon.