Premier League Match 27 - West Brom 1 Southampton 0

Fucking Get On With It!

Right then. Let’s start a winning streak until the end of the season to make sure we qualify for the Champions League.  Someone might have said this before the West Brom games but could we do it?

This week has seen more players get fit again.  The only issues reported were the ever-injured Jay Rodriguez, Toby Alderweireld and Emmanuel Mayuka.  Jay has been quoted as saying he’ll be back in March so he can’t be far away and Toby should be fit by Tuesday night’s home game.  Mayuka is out for the season so that’s one potential solution to our goalscoring crisis that can’t be considered.

West Brom were going to go down this season from the moment they appointed Alan Irvine in the summer.  A predictably shocking run of form meant that a change was inevitable though and they appointed Red Adair (Tony Pulis) before any other struggling team did.  Predictably, they have improved especially defensively so today we have the immovable object (them) against the resistable force (us).

Our team looked strong on paper with us reverting to a 3 man defence which enables us to play with 2 up front.  Elia was sacrificed to bring Gardos into the back 3 with Bertrand returning to take the place of Targett.  Elsewhere, both Steve Davis and JWP paid the price for their poor performances in the Liverpool game and in came Morgan and Sadio Mané, who turned up on time today.  West Brom lined up in typical Pulis fashion with defensive minded midfield players on the wings in a very solid looking 4-4-2 formation.

Solid is what we need to be as the game starts.  After letting in a goal in 2 minutes against Liverpool it should have been fresh in the players minds.  However, we concede a free kick for absolutely fuck all, just in our half within the first minute, Brunt launches it into the box towards Dawson, Yoshida wins it but only heads it down into a space and Berahino, totally unimpeded by any of the 10 players back defending, lashes it first time into the top corner.  It’s not quite Coutinho class from last week but fucking hell. 2 minutes gone, 1-0 down.

We continued to look a bit of a shambles after goal, getting nothing going up front apart from Maya trying an optimistic shot rom 30 yards which went 30 yards over the bar.  We also looked all over the place at the back.  West Brom were defending deep so Mané had no space to run into and then it started. 12 minutes on the clock and Ben Foster takes an age over a goal kick.  He’s got form for this – in a game at St.Mary’s two years ago, before Pulis, he was timewasting from the 3rd minute and he’s at it again today.  Here's what I wrote then....

Another misplaced pass results in a goal kick and hang on a minute – Foster is time wasting.  He’s pissing about and re-spotting the ball, addressing it and then stopping.  What a fucking wanker.  Webb has noticed and waves him to get on with it which he eventually does.  I’m just dumbstruck – it’s 0-0 and there are 3 minutes gone.

For the record, I have no problem with wasting a bit of time at the end of a game when you’re hanging on to a result but not at the start.  There are people paying £50 a pop to watch football, not to watch a goalkeeper moving the ball from side to side and fuck about for ages.  It’s so easy to stop – referee tells the players before the game that he’ll book anyone who wastes time, be it the first minute or the last – and then he actually does it. Today’s ref however is Phil Dowd and he likes timewasting as it enables the fat twat to get back in position.

This is bloody terrible and West Brom look like the only team likely to score even though they’re not deviating much from the two banks of 4 and keep the shape model.  Something is clearly not right so Ronald decides to make the big call and ditch the 3 at the back.  Florin Gardos is the unlucky one to make way and on comes Eljero Elia.

We immediately look better and Morgan pings a wonderful ball from left to right over the left back and straight to Mané who beats the defender (and a tug on his shoulder) but the ball won’t drop and he lashes it over the bar.  There’s a minor scare as Gardener gets put through by a great ball from Brunt but he seems to shite himself as he gets near the goal and fails to both shoot or find a colleague and falls on his arse allowing José to get in and clear it.

There’s an injury and Fatty Dowd has hurt his knee and is limping around.  He can’t keep up with play when he’s got two working knees but he manages to award us a free kick on the edge of the box to the right which Dusan Tadic chips wastefully straight to the keeper.

As the half draws to a close, Bertrand does well to put Elia away down the left and cross, only for Mané again to lash it over the bar.  Half time comes and this is either going to be 1-0 to them or 1-0 to them.

Big Vic fails to come out for  the second half and is replaced by Steve Davis.  Also going off is Fatty Dowd who obviously fancies a lie down after wheezing about for 45 minutes and so we have a new referee for the second half with 4^th official Graham Scott taking over.  Also off is Saido Berahino who goes down under a nothing challenge from Maya and has to go off as Pulis lets us know his thinking and brings on another defensive midfielder in Mulumbu.

Mulumbu’s first contribution is to try and cover for Morrison who has had the ball nicked off him in the right back position by Elia.  The ball ends up with Tadic who is right on the left hand edge of the box when Mulumbu takes him out.  Morgan is over the free kick and decides to shoot this week and it curls about a foot wide of the far post.

The resulting goal kick sees endless fucking about from Foster and he gets a deserved yellow card.  It’s interesting because Koeman had obviously been in Scott’s ear as 4^th official in the first half and then he ends up refereeing.  You also wonder if Fatty Dowd would have booked him.

We are of course struggling for goals these days, no one more so than Graziano Pellè and nothing sums up our current problems more than what happens next as Bertrand and Elia combine superbly down the wing and Bertrand gets to the line and crosses low.  It’s a tap in for the big Italian but he misses the ball altogether and though a defender obligingly tries to put it in his own net, it goes wide.

With 15 minutes to go, Shane Long comes on against his former club and another disappointing afternoon for Tadic is over.  West Brom then almost seal the game with an identical gtoal to the first one with a free kick lumped into the box which breaks to Fletcher who lashes it over the bar.  Sessegnon is on for the Baggies and he initially does well to get away from Clyne and then is a complete wanker as he gets intot he box and throws himself under no challenge from anyone.  There’s not even any contact with anyone to invite him to go down.  It’s truly pathetic.

We try the West Brom approach ourselves and create a chance as Mané crosses, Morgan heads down and Pellè swings at it but under a challenge succeeds in merely scuffing it through to Foster.  90, 91, 92 and a final chance as Fonte knocks down a cross and Elia lashes wide of the near post from a difficult angle.  Fuck it.  Again.

Well that was shit.  Another game without a goal, another game with it being an uphill battle after 2 minutes and another game where we hardly had a shot on target from a vast majority of the possession.  I totally agreed with the starting line up today but the three at the back without Alderweireld looked all over the place and though we looked better when we went to the usual 4-3-3, we still didn’t make enough of an impression on the West Brom defence.  For their part, West Brom choked the shit out of the game from the 3^rd minute onwards but knowing Pulis, he probably knew that they could comfortably do this against us.  They did their job and fair play to them – the timewasting is annoying but if referees are going to let them get away with it then they’re going to continue to do it.  It’s such an easy thing to stop but then so is diving.  If Sessegnon gets given a 3 game ban for cheating then I guess he won’t be doing it again and nor would anyone else.... but he won’t and so there’ll be people diving about next week as well.

So now we’re down to 6^th and Spurs are breathing down our necks with a game in hand.  The one positive was that Chelsea beat the snake Pochettino’s Spurs in the Capital One Cup Final and so a second Europa League place will revert to the League so 6^th place will mean getting your passport out.  Ronald Koeman is attempting to be realistic and saying that it’s virtually impossible for us to reach the Champions League and he’s right and there really shouldn’t be much disappointment if we fail to make it.  My expectations for this season have always been that it would be fantastic to finish above one of Liverpool and Spurs.  If we do that then we’ll be in the Europa League next season which will be a fantastic achievement.  I think that in order to seriously have a go at qualifying for the big one, we needed a bigger squad, one that had all the current players, plus all the ones who left in the summer.

So, not a great few weeks but we only have a couple of days to wait for another chance to get it right with the visit of Crystal Palace… who incidentally have now won 5 away games in a row.  Bring it on.