with half an eye on the arsenal v everton game on TV, i had to take this match in online through the audio-commentary (still called ALBION WORLD although the service itself has changed and been renamed ALBION PLAYER) on the baggies' website, so i've only got "hot-stuff" to write about on this one.
from the outset, things were just wrong. i don't know who dimatteo thought he was playing against today, but his tactical setup was more like something you'd expect in a cup game against lower league opposition: a 4-5-1 formation with luke moore as the lone striker!?! tony mowbray worked up a 4-5-1 game last year, but that was based around ishmael miller and the all important element of jonathan greening in the role of supporting attacker. despite some early success with this tactic - in the form of back to back wins against fulham and middlesbrough last year - still, it took almost three months for the pundits and supporters in general to understand and for this tactic to become evident as a recognizable, legitimate strategy. there is no shortage of good midfielders at the club, so one can't really go wrong in selection, with RDM's five man midfield consisting of greening, dorrans, mulumbu, koren, and brunt. beside the inept decision to leave luke moore up front on his own, the gaffer also started joe mattock at outside left-back where he surely should have played marek cech - coming back from international duty or not!
the match started off well with chris brunt unlucky not to score from a free-kick after about 4 minutes, as forest keeper lee camp leaped heroically to finger-tip the shot onto the goal-post, keeping the ball out of the top-right hand corner of the net. the rest of the first-half was rather lack-luster with neither side really making any real headway in attack, and the usual skillful, controlled west brom passing game was nowhere to be evidenced. both sides missed opportunities and were lucky to be going in at half-time with a 0-0 score-line.
this is one of the few matches - and including last year against premier league opposition - where i thought the baggies were properly outplayed, and certainly forest had a better time hanging onto the ball and going forward than the baggies. but jonas olsson and scott carson both had good games, and the match was really won by the albion defense; as well as by virtue of a dismal penalty attempt in the 76th minute by forest substitute, and ex-baggie, robert earnshaw that sent scott carson the wrong way but was wide of the albion goal.
the baggies took the lead in the 52nd minute on a jonathan greening cross intended for luke moore. instead the ball found its way into the net off forest defender chris cohen's knee, and the albion, uncharacteristically had taken the lead against the run of play.
brunt and koren were substituted at half-time by cech and beattie respectively. despite bringing on the second striker dimatteo still had the team playing their initial 4-5-1 formation, continuing with luke moore as the lone striker and beattie playing wide in the midfield. this did improve the albion's play with the odd display of good individual skills - most notably dorrans going forward and both olsson and carson at the back. despite this the baggies still appeared rather shapeless with one or two players confused as to where they should be playing, most especially marek cech.
gianni zuiverloon limped off in the 71st minute to be replaced by the much improved leon barnett. the baggies came to life towards the end of the game and probably played their best football of the match in the last five minutes of normal time, and a quite inexplicable five minutes worth of injury time. other than this, it was the worst baggies' performance since their away loss to fulham last year where, quite honestly, the team didn't really show up to play at all.
in the bigger picture, it was heartening to see that the baggies know how to win at this level of football - and on the strength of a decidedly poor performance at that. this in itself could portend success. as well, and while being the second away win in one week - this was also the baggies first away win in league competition since last september; and one can't help but feel it's going to be important to know how to win these type of games in order to see the club through to automatic promotion. so no matter how dire things might have looked today, roberto dimatteo is off to a good start and has started to turn the club around in regards to their more negative tendencies. he's certainly got the team's defensive game up from what we've seen it before; and he has revived scott carson to a level of confidence where last year he had really seemed burnt out. i'll have to look it up, but i know that the two consecutive clean sheets this week were the first in a long time that didn't feature a 0-0.
all in all, i rather enjoyed just seeing the team win, even though they played poorly. it was a peculiarly welcome change to the state of things last year: that is, playing well and losing or coming up with an undeserved draw. still, and fully appreciative of the defensive improvement and the introduction of more "direct" tactics, i hope that the new gaffer gets his offensive selections better sorted out; and that shouldn't be too hard with the number of good strikers already in the squad and roman bednar coming back from his ban and returning to training on monday morning.
as far as i'm concerned the albion tradition requires that you play a 4-4-2 or even in more adventurous situations 4-3-3; but, if you're really determined to play 4-5-1 with this team (and you ain't got ishmael miller available) craig beattie would seem much more suited to the role than luke moore. i'm still baffled by this selection and i hope RDM at very least learned something today, or figured out what it was he wanted to know!
of course, we'll hope for a better and more entertaining performance on tuesday when west brom are away to peterborough! otherwise, so far so good...
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