Premier League Match 21 - Southampton 1 West Bromwich Albion 0

Luckily, Artur woke up for the 89th Minute.

I had a good feeling as I went along to St.Mary’s for the home game against West Bromwich Albion.  There were reports that our injured players were returning soon and also, due to the lack to 90mph winds and hammering rain, I could walk across the Itchen Bridge without fear of taking off and ending up in the water.  Occasionally I used to get a bus across but you can’t now because a combination of ‘correct change only’ unmanned toll booth at one end and a closed road off the roundabout at the other end means the traffic doesn’t move so getting a bus is somewhat pointless.  Anyway, back to the football.

West Brom recently sacked Steve Clarke and have played four games with a caretaker manager called Keith Downing.  Their results have been largely spun as being positive and an unbeaten run but in reality it’s been four games against teams who will be near the bottom and they’ve managed just one win.  In that time they also got dumped out of the FA Cup at home by Palace so not all as good as it seems.  There is a feeling in our camp of a new start after recent troubles and so I’m very positive about today.  The Baggies have just appointed a new manger called Pepe Mel who is Spanish and who hopefully won’t speak English in his press conferences but he’s in the stands today and will take over post-match.

The team news brings great joy in that Guly do Prado is fit again and on the bench.  Guly lovers will have to forgive me a bit of sarcasm as his inclusion on the bench merely made me raise an eyebrow whereas the news that King Artur was back had me and my son fist bumping and high fiving as we took our seats.  My daughter (drafted into the team today in place of my holidaying Dad) wondered what on earth we were doing.  So, the King is back, so is Nathaniel Clyne and aside from Big Vic and his hairline fracture and The Pirate and his Geordie Bollock kicking induced suspension, we have all out major players available.

West Brom have Liam Ridgewell in the team yet again proving that ability needn’t always be a pre-requisite for being a Premier League footballer.  It must be because he’s left footed and their comparative scarcity has made his career as he really is shite.  They have Anelka up front who must be about 45 now along with Shane Long who I watch in the warm up just to see if he practices diving around and whingeing as part of his pre-match routine.  I’ve liked the look of Amalfitano this season and always thought Chris Brunt was a decent player.

Earlier on this season West Brom went to the FA and bitched about penalty decisions that went against them in the light of them getting a shocker given against them at Chelsea.  I didn’t have much sympathy as they also bitched about the one we got at the Hawthorns which was as clear cut as you could ever see.  We ourselves of course, complained about this sort of thing as well but only about one referee, the legendary (in his own mind) Mr Twattenburg but it’s odd that they got an apology from the referees chief and we basically got told to fuck off and get on with it.  That particular episode ended this week as we were told once again that Twattenburg had no case to answer so we may well get the useless attention seeking wiggy twat to referee us pretty soon.  One rule for Everton who dodged him for 6 years, one rule for us.  Ironically, refereeing for us today is Howard Webb who was responsible for our worst (non) decision of the season so far up at Norwich when he deemed that playing basketball in the penalty area was perfectly acceptable.

Away we go and Siants are in possession and start knocking it around in the usual fashion.  The first time West Brom touch it is when a pass out to Clyne is misplaced straight to Ridgewell but instead of controlling it and passing it like any normal footballer would, he gets his feet mixed up and shins it out for a throw with no one near him.  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.

West Brom are getting as many men as they can behind the ball and once again we have opposition who are playing like the League 1 sides we played a few years back who parked the bus and played for a 0-0.  We’re not really on our game so their packed defence is not being tested by our continual giving away of the ball.  The chances come but none are really testing the time waster in the Baggies goal.  Lallana picks up a ball from Morgan on the edge of the box, spin turns to make a yard and sidefoots it straight to the time waster.

The next quarter of an hour saw a few more hit and hopes which didn’t threaten to goal by varying wide margins.  Firstly Sir Rickie shanks a left footed volley across the goal and wide.  Then Steve Davis picked up a shite clearance and miscued a long range effort into the Northam.  Corky was up next and the winning seat in the Jack Cork ‘Where will the ball land’ competition was Block 41, Row Z, Seat 823.

West Brom manage to stop time wasting for long enough to get in our half and win a free kick as Morgan chops down Anelka.  Steven Reid lines up the free kick from 30 yards but his effort is still rising as it lands in the Chapel Stand.  Shane Long has been quiet due to a lack of possession but he gets away down the right and Dejan goes over and launches him.  It’s a foul but it’s not that bad but Long arches his back and makes a big squealy noise and so the book comes out.  He tries to stand up but falls to the floor again and writhes around a bit more.  The West Brom physio is ambling around the back of the goal either because he knows Long is a faker or because he’s trying to waste time but the ‘injured’ party if off the pitch so they have to get on with it.  Morrison slings in the free kick, King Artur punches and danger averted.

Normal service is resumed with Saints trying to find an opening and Davis chips one into Sir Rickie who from the left hand side of the penalty area, tries to take the net off with a left footed volley but it flies over the bar.  There are 44 minutes gone and the ball boy retrieves the ball from the empty seats between the two sets of fans behind the goal and throws it straight to Foster who unbelievably just kicks it back into the empty seats.  Webb has seen it again but again does nothing apart from standing on half way and gesticulating for him to get on with it.  If I was the ball boy I would definitely have called Foster a choice 4 letter expletive that rhymes with ‘runt’.

The half end with J-Rod smashing one over the bar and so frustratingly, it’s still 0-0.  Half time is spent telling my daughter that it’s all her fault as the last game she saw was West Ham at home which was also 0-0.  Joking aside, we need to do more or this is going to be a repeat.

The second half starts in much the same way as the first – we’ve got the ball and West Brom are all behind it.  Five minutes in and Mulumbu lets the ball roll across him and gets burgled by J-Rod who runs headlong at the goal, gets in range and flashes a shot wide.  The general ‘disrupt at all costs’ approach of the midlanders is illustrated when Clyne gets away from Anelka who brings him down by throwing his zimmer frame in front of him.  Long then uses more conventional methods to hack down Luke Shaw.  There’s no booking from Webb though, just arm-waving childish petulance from Long who is just a wanker.  You’ve hacked him over, you’re nowhere near the ball, just get on with it.  Still smarting from having his tantrum, Long then lunged into Morgan and got the booking he deserved, just for being a complete knob really.

On the hour mark, Mauricio goes for it and removes Corky, despite him once again not being the most deserving candidate for substitution and throws on Gaston Ramirez who has some sort of plaitted tribute to Stevie Wonder on his head.  One can only imagine the banter in training when he turned up with cornrows on his head.  I have my usual fear or a midfield without a holding player but for now, Gaston is looking good as he goes on a mazy across the pitch and is predictably hacked down by Anelka.  The Uruguayan fancies it though and takes the free kick ahead of Sir Rickie and his effort flies over the wall but straight at Foster. 

And then, a moment of quality.  The ball is over with Shaw on the left and is worked back inside to Davis, then Clyne and eventually over to Gaston on the right.  He played a wonderful first time ball inside to Lallana who found himself completely unmarked and he placed it under the time wasting bastard to put us 1-0 up.  Foster then went and got the ball out of the net pretty quickly – the wanker!

West Brom are no longer time wasting and are actually committing players forward but one thing doesn’t change as Lallana breaks away and he his cynically halted by Olsson’s high boot in the midriff for which he gets rightly booked.  From here on in though, the folly of taking Cork off is now apparent as the Baggies are starting to play and put us under pressure and we have no bite in our midfield.  As we reach the last 10 minutes, West Brom send on Berahino, Gera and Vydra (2 strikers and a midfielder) and go for it.  We respond by removing Adam Lallana and bringing on JWP who takes station out on the left.

We were under pressure but not looking particularly threatened until the 89^th minute when my mate Ridgewell got down the left and crossed it Long (it must have been an accident) who was 6 yards out and all on his own.  His flicked and lazy sidefooted effort was kicked away by the large starfish shaped Polish legend in our Goal.  All Hail The King!

We managed a last minute breakaway as Gaston and his hair got forward and hit a shot straight to Foster who had somehow lost his need to waste time and launched it forwards.  The highlight of the game was upon us as Guly came on for J-Rod who had finally managed to get himself substituted after his third poor game in a row.  West Brom had one more free kick for a foul by Shaw but Morrison’s ball in was pushed clear by King Artur and so we managed to secure a thoroughly deserved victory with the final irony being Foster showing enough urgency to be roaming around in our penalty area.  Tosser.

I don’t really care that West Brom dominated the last ten minutes and nearly nicked a point.  Any team that wastes time from the 3^rd minute onwards, deserves to get fuck all out of the game aside from the record for being the earliest that any team has started time wasting.  I’ve never seen anything so pathetic in my life.  Last year, the Baggies came down here, played three up front all game and just attacked for 90 minutes and dicked us 3-0.  Compare that to this year.  I know it’s all about winning but for fucks sake, people are paying to watch 90 minutes of football and be entertained.  In my opinion, Webb should have booked Ben Foster after 3 minutes and told him that if he did it again then he was getting a second yellow and goodbye.  Job done, game flows.  How he didn’t book him when he kicked the ball back into the empty seats just before half time is beyond me.  Pepe Mel apparently has a reputation for playing open attacking positive football.  I wonder how much he enjoyed watching that from his new team.

In truth, this was a not a great game – in fact it was the wrong side of total gash.  We gave the ball away a lot when we tried to attack which was partly down to the massed defence and midfield but some of our passing and (lack of) movement was very poor.  Corky and Davis gave the ball away a lot today whilst in front of them, Sir Rickie seemed to struggle against the behemoth defenders Olsson and McAuley and J-Rod produced another poor game.  He had a great game at Cardiff and since then, not very much at all.  The defence was back to the first choice and we of course looked more solid and of course, the King was back.  Anyone who doubts how much of a problem having a dodgy keeper causes should now be more enlightened after watching today and the Gazza & Kelvin ‘How to be a League 1 Keeper’ shambles of the past few weeks.  “All the great teams start with a great goalkeeper” – who said that?  It wasn’t me it was Brian Clough who was talking about Peter Shilton at the time.  He knew what he was talking about.

We are still 9^th in the league and on the face of it, it looks like we’re in a competition for 8^th place with Newcastle and that’s about it.  I can’t honestly see us catching Man United who are 7^th and I can’t see Swansea, Stoke or Villa or anyone else who is in the bottom half getting near us.  Of course, there are loads of games to go but it will be interesting to see if this influences both our attitude in this January transfer window and our attitude to the FA Cup.  Yeovil is the next home game but before that we have a trip to the Stadium of Light to play against Sunderland who are showing signs of life (4-1 win at Fulham today) but also have a tendency to be shite under our favourite small time dressing room floor shitter Gus Poyet.  It would be nice to give it a big ‘can you keep up’ next week.  Come on You Reds.

Premier League Match 10 - West Brom 2 Southampton 0

Les Reed and his bodyguard watch on and wait....

A trip to the Hawthorns to face the Baggies in our Monday Night Football debut.  It’s been a source of comfort so far this season that we have either remained outside the relegation zone or a point or so adrift but now there is a 5 point gap following wins for Villa and Norwich over the weekend so we need to get moving and fast.  West Brom is not an ideal place to come with this is mind as they’ve made a good start and aside from losing to Man City in the 92^nd minute, have been getting outstanding results at home.  They are managed now by Steve Clarke who I freely admit, I thought would be a poor choice but so far so good and good luck to the man who has always been a No2 up til now.  As a No2 turned manager, he’s no Steve Wigley or Stuart Gray, that’s for sure.

Surely we will today see a more pragmatic approach from us as trying to win 5-4 really isn’t working but then again, any fringe players who were hoping to get in, did their chances no good at all in the debacle at Leeds in the COC.  As it is, The Great Gaston is fit again and is named on the right wing in a very attacking looking 4-4-2 with Lallana on the left and J-Rod and Sir Rickie up front.  Is it odd that I see a line-up fill of attacking intent and attack minded players and think “we’re going to get stuffed” because that’s how I feel?  It is undoubtedly, too open and whilst we will cause the Baggies problems when we have the ball, when we haven’t got it, it will be open season, especially as they have a reputation as a fast counter-attacking side..   Artur Boruc has been replaced by Gazza due to the pathetic fans who gave him a load of stick on his home debut and then whinged like babies when he gave some back.  I am not impressed that he has been dropped because of this and I hope you Chapel End morons who were involved in all this, feel proud of yourselves.  How long does an internal investigation take for fucks sake.  It’s been 8 days since the Spurs game.

We make an encouraging start by reaching the 5^th minute and still being at 0-0, Gaston has got himself on the ball from his right wing berth and looked decent and the team looks fairly solid until Yoshida slips when given a simple pass and West Brom are away. The ball is slipped to Shane Long on the left who cuts in and thankfully pulls it back behind everyone and we get away with it.  The next few minutes teach you that West Brom are going to kill us if we give the ball away cheaply with their pace out wide and that Mulumbu in the centre of midfield is an absolute beast (in a good way) as he repeatedly picks up the ball and drives forward with neither Morgan or Davis getting anywhere near him.

On the quarter hour we have our first shot in anger as Gaston tries to trick his way into the box and the ball breaks to Sir Rickie on the right and he hammers in a decent low shot (the kind that Kelvin Davis would really struggle with) but Foster is rock solid.  West Brom go straight up the other end and Odemwingie and Jones find themselves with the ball on our right wing with Foxy and Lallana about thirty yards away.  Odemwingie simply cuts in and smashes in a shot which Gera prods over the bar from right in front of Gazza.  It seems the problem of actually getting close, putting pressure on and getting tackles in before the opposition shoot has not been addressed as yet... fabulous, I bet this is going to end well.

We’re not too far behind in terms of creating chances and we are having most of the possession but West Brom just look much more dangerous than we do.  Sir Rickie can't get enough on a header from a Gaston cross and it just plops into Fosters’ midriff... ten seconds later and Odemwingie has smashed a shot inches wide following a throw out and one pass while we do the 'red training cone' thing in defence.

On the half hour West Brom take the lead through and unsurprising source.  It’s slightly controversial as there’s a clear hand ball at the start of the move by the eventual scorer but we have more than enough time to regroup and defend but we just don't.  Lallana gets completely the wrong side when he comes into tackle Odemwingie and the ball gets played out to the right where Jones as usual, has half the pitch to himself.  He simply passes it back to Odemwingie when who is 25 yards out with no one closing him down.  He has time to advance 5 yards before hitting it, a flick off of Maya and it flies past Gazza for another pathetically easy goal conceded.

We have a good go at conceding our usual two in two minutes but somehow survive til half time with Gazza making a decent block from Long and then Morgan blocking the shot from the rebound with his arm.  The Baggies knock it back to their keeper who booms it 70 yards straight to Dorrans on the left with no one in our team getting anywhere near to getting a head on it depite it being in the air for ages.  More Keystone Cops defending later and luckily, Odemwingie hoofs it over the bar.

We start the second half pretty well and with J-Rod actually getting on the ball and crossing into the mixer where Olsson heads it against Gaston’s head and it rebounds to Sir Rickie who chests it down superbly and half volleys against the bar with Foster nowhere.  Usually a near miss will pump a team up but it seems to deflate us and the match goes through a period of West Brom being totally comfortable and us being very uninspired and lethargic and seemingly accepting the inevitable.

This duly arrives  on the hour mark as Davis tries to put Clyne away and West Brom intercept.  The ball goes to Ridgewell who I will never accept as a Premiership footballer and he booms it down the line to long who has Fonte for company, almost.  Easy as you like, Long turns onto his right foot and with Jose getting nowhere near him, booms over a ‘come and get me’ cross onto the head of Odemwingie who can’t miss and doesn’t to make it 2-0.  We’ll go home now then shall we.

Gaston is looking tired as expected and J-Rod has had a pretty poor game and they’re replaced with Mayuka and fans favourite Guly do Prado whose first attacking involvement is to connect with a decent Foxy cross only to pull out the best 50p head effort seen since the wistful League 1 days of Neal Trotman.  An interesting substitution is made with Fox being replaced with Luke Shaw who is making his Premier League debut.  One for the future, the very near future I expect.

We should cough up a 3^rd goal after some woefully weak defending by Jose allows Lukaku in but his cross to the back stick is volleyed wide by Chris Brunt when he really had to score.  We have a penalty shout with 10 to go when Adam Lallana was taken out by Olsson and I can't find a single reason why this wasn’t given but it wasn’t and so our chances of a consolation goal and just maybe, an interesting last 10 minutes were gone.

There are 87 minutes gone and we have in the main been woeful and easily beaten but the fans give  it a large ‘One Nigel Adkins’ to the obvious appreciation of the man himself.  It’s heart warming stuff and shows that whilst it’s rare for life in football to be ‘fair’, the fans of this club in the main, want to see Nigel Adkins stay as a reward for what he’s achieved, even if (I guess) it involves us going down.  On the pitch, Lallana plays a 1-2 and pokes an effort which Foster smothers well.

And so a predictable, numbing performance comes to an end and the inevitable away defeat is confirmed.  Unless something changes, we are not going to get a single point in away games all season.   West Brom were set up in exactly the way you should be set up in this league if you’re not one of the top 6 clubs - with a back 4 including full backs who gets forward, two defensive midfielders who help out the centre backs, three attacking midfielders with pace and invention and a lone front man who works the width of the penalty area.  Whether we play 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 then we have the same problems in every match which in my opinion, come down to us having no defensive midfield and defenders who aren’t good enough.  Even if Morgan Schneiderlin was Patrick Vieira and a complete natural in that position (which he clearly isn’t), then he couldn’t do it on his own.  We had two out and out strikers on the pitch yesterday as well as two No 10’s in Ramirez and Lallana and a midfielder in Davis who is much happier going forward than defending.  It’s too open and we will get stuffed every time we play this way, especially away from home.   I know that Odemwingie got the goals but the most important players for West Brom were Mulumbu and Yacob who sat in the middle of the park, screened the centre backs, broke up our play and then either drove forward or passed it to the creative players.

Even allowing for the lack of screen in front of them, our defending is comedic.  We allow players to just walk up the wing, have a bath, have a fag and still have enough time to cross the ball unhindered or even better, enough time to pass it across the top of the box to a player who then has a free shot while totally free of any challenge.   We rarely pick up players and on the rare occasions that we do, we don’t tackle them.  Are we trying to get into Europe on the fair play ticket by not getting any bookings or something?  It ridiculous, I know it’s a cliché but sometimes you really have to just get stuck into ‘em.  We’re so easy to create chances against and it’s garbage and we keep on doing it and it will get Nigel Adkins the sack, sooner or later and we will of course, get relegated.

There is a desperate hope that we can sort it out in January by signing some more players but who‘s to say we won’t make a complete balls of the transfer window like we did in the summer.  I know there are Reed and Cortese shaped conspiracy theories as to who is to blame for this but we undoubtedly signed players in the wrong positions in the summer.  Steven Davis is a better footballer than Dean Hammond but I’d rather have the latter because he’s a better defensive midfielder.  We needed to sign one of J-Rod and Mayuka but didn’t really need both, we needed to sign a left back and we didn’t, we needed to sign two decent centre backs, we didn’t get either, we needed pace on the wings, we didn’t get any.  Also, from last year, two of our stronger characters in Dean Hammond and Billy Sharp are no longer there.

We are where we are though with the players we’ve got and so how do we sort it out?  Calum Chambers plays in midfield and at centre back so could he do a job in a holding role?  Is Jack Cork nearly fit yet?  If not, could Yoshida play in midfield? - I know it’s out of position but desperate times call for desperate measures, should we try Hooiveld and Yoshida as the centre back pairing as it hasn’t been tried yet, should Desperate Dan Seaborne be in the team and should we re-sign Paul Wotton as a free agent?

Next up is Swansea at home – a failure to win that and the vultures really will be circling.