PNE 0-0 WBA

i woke up at 7.00 AM last saturday morning to watch this one live on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA. it was a little better than the last two albion performances, and considering that this is a fixture that the baggies have not won in 50 years, seems a poor result only by virtue of their recent back to back losses, home to crystal palace and away to barnsley.

graham dorrans was the best of the baggies' players on the day and seems to have gotten over the idea that he is the next paul scholes. this was illustrated most clearly in the fact that the young mid-fielder had the only real clear-cut scoring chances on the day, and a quick reaction by lillywhites' keeper, andy lonergan on a late header by dorrans in front of goal was all that was needed for both sides to maintain a clean-sheet.

live text replay

i haven't really got any complaints; although, i still don't think we've seen the best of this year's baggies yet and can only hope that they get the timing right in terms of form over the course of the year. when the baggies last won promotion from this division they spent most of the season in 2nd place behind watford and later stoke city. both watford (in the long-term) and the potters (in the short-term) were prime example of what happens when you peak too early in this division. watford fell away the last 15-20 games of the season and finished sixth; good enough for a play-off spot, and stoke - who rather looked like running away with the division after taking over 1st place in march - similarly ended on a run of poor results and the baggies won the championship trophy.

the problem right now is solely the lack of offensive output on the part of the forwards. it's all very well to imagine the outcome of what in themselves must be highly speculative talks - with sol campbell and thinking about getting the team playing higher quality stuff at the back; but, more importantly, the strikers have to start scoring goals before the albion start winning consistently again.



maybe it's a good thing that they've had a sudden poor run of form so early in what certainly looked more than a promising season at the outset? there are certainly lessons to be learned and this was another rough reminder of life in the champonship.

i'm sure that one of the strikers will emerge fairly soon, and who knows, with ishmael miller expected back within weeks after christmas break it could be a high-scoring season yet?

in the meantime - and let's hope that luke moore finds his early season form again after a month of injuries, and that bednar, cox and wood find their form soon. at this rate, i think di matteo could even afford to give cox and wood more starts and see how they get on over a full 80-90 minutes of league football.