today's match with portsmouth showed all the team's strengths - as well as (at least in some small measure) its weaknesses too; and tells us pretty fairly where we stand. i feel vindicated - as a long time supporter of his - that greening played so well in the first half and got the goal. i can't understand any of the knocks that he's gotten from fans this year. personally, i think he's the only one on the squad, at the moment, who consistently looks a premiership player week in and week out. despite dropping back into a midfield position in the second half, where he seemed to disappear a little bit he was effective enough - as always doing his part in the series of quick, incisive breaks that the albion created in the latter part of game.
even though there were the wasted finishes that we have all become used to seeing this year, the real problem that i could see today was, that going into the second half with a 1-0 lead, the baggies just weren't quite sure on how to play it. i mean the peter crouch goal, it was really quite a spectacular, and unstoppable shot - especially with the unfortunate flick it took off meite, redirecting the ball enough to send it over the outstretched carson; but it was the evidently less decisive and controlling play on the part of the albion at the the outset of the second half that allowed crouch the opportunity. that is really what led to the pompey goal. the baggies just didn't seem to know how to carry on straight-off with the way they had played in the first half - and it took the first fifteen minutes or so to re-establish themsleves when what they needed to do was keep going straight at pompey with miller and greening pushing forward looking for the second goal to put game beyond reach.
there's been so much talk about strikers with the faithful lately, as miller is still learning his craft and bednar is having trouble adjusting to the tempo of the premiership game, but i felt after watching today, it is our defensive play that is weakest - and especially in goal. i think meite played well on the right, and there were no real dangerous mistakes by robinson - although he has been displaying some bizarre decision making, and his outbursts probably don't help - but i have real questions about carson. a goalie should be directing things at the back and being decisive about indicating who should be coming for and taking the ball. i think that with the line-up at the back as it was today, mowbray's got it just about right with meite, olsson and robinson covering the central positions, but there's just nobody running the defense and we came within inches of repeating last week's performance when he bobbled that cross on the line. he also doesn't seem to have much of an eye for starting any moves forward. he is the main reason why our best defense is to stay on the attack and control the ball in midfield.
that's not to say that we don't need to start scoring more goals, but a clean sheet today would have preserved a victory - even though it never looked to be a low-scoring game, that's the way it turned out - and successful teams know how to win in the end on the unluckiest of days. yesterday's man. united match was a perfect example. they just could not put the ball into the sunderland net when they might have had at least 2 or 3, and they only just managed to win in injury-time.
we'll have to see about miller - i havent heard anything yet about his injury (and i'm checking the BBC every few minutes at this point) but he's going to be sorely missed if he's out for any length of time, and i thought he had a great game today. he should never have gone after that ball, but i guess that's just reflects his youthful enthusiasm and really wanting to score.
there's no doubt pompey played pretty abysmal football in the first half, and the baggies looked better than the 1-0 scoreline, and i still i can't really understand why greening didn't keep pressing forward in the second half, as it was the inability to get the second goal before the pompey equaliser that cost them the win. i think that TM should encourage him to go forward, in the tradition of tony brown - whose style (which was thought revolutionary at the time) was always to play the midfield as an attacking position. koren and valero, i thought were adequately improved at winning balls in the midfield; and koren looks to be adapting to the speed of the premiership, and that should leave greening free to go forward more.
brunt and morrison provided some really good wing play throughout (on the left and right respectively). it was of course brunt's brilliant free-kick that led to the greening goal, and i was surprised that morrison was so effective playing down either side - as i noticed him more and more coming down the left wing when greening had moved back into midfield. late in the game, he played a tremendous left-footed cross-field ball for bednar in a buildup that ended with brunt missing a great opportunity for a second goal... really entertaining stuff - just not winning stuff, yet.
again, on terms of performance of passing football it was a heartening display and i can see yet further improvement today at getting the ball into the box; but the baggies are now beginning to look pretty firmly established as the bottom team in the league, and i can't see anything more than a fight with blackburn and sunderland as to the order of finish for the bottom three. but more on their long term fate later...
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