WBA 0-2 Cardiff City

this was absolutely pathetic; and save for the improved midfield play in the second-half which pretty much saw the albion camped out in the blue-birds half of the pitch for the duration - there was nothing positive to be taken from this match.

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the baggies, while occasionally falling prey to the defensive tactics of lower to mid-table teams, always seem to be able to raise their game against the better clubs in the division. not so in this one, and as a result the albion's stranglehold grip on second-place has been slightly loosened. while cardiff are now in third place behind west brom, it is still a five-point difference between the two and the baggies now need to pick up the pace or face going into the christmas break and FA CUP on a poor run of form; exactly what they want to avoid.

this now makes next monday's match against QPR a must win situation. luckily, this game is going to be broadcast live on TV around the world which is a circumstance that usually sees the albion rise to the occasion. after that they are away to blackpool which could also be a difficult game, with the seasiders surprisingly being one of the form teams of the division at the moment. they may also have to play temporarily without youssouf mulumbu, who was injured early on in the match yesterday.



the big news, however, is that captain scott carson will be out for three matches on a red-card which he earned through head-butting cardiff city striker, michael chopra with just minutes left in the game. the resulting penalty, though initially saved by veteran goalkeeping coach, dean keily was turned in on the rebound to kill the game off and give it its final result of 0-2.

the outcome of all this is that west brom are now 2-points short of averaging the 2-points a game that they'll need in order to make automatic promotion a comfortable proposition.

it is also a very difficult situation to assess. although the baggies are definitely feeling the loss of jerome thomas at key moments, this was a good albion team and should be putting in better performances than this. with luke moore out, it was pretty clear that roman bednar needs some more game time. for one thing, he needs to find his match form which he really hasn't had all year; and he needs to find his place in the team again. one of the big problems with the baggies attack yesterday was that they didn't create the type of passing or ball movement that would get the czech striker involved in the game at all. the other - and i think main problem, was that the whole team felt tentative going forward. even with a huge share of the possession and relentless opportunity to go at the cardiff goal, this only saw one or two really good chances created. to be fair, it was also a really good performance by the city goalie and back four.

after the QPR match next week it's kind of a mixed bag of fixtures going into the new year. with carson out for three matches, dean keily will have to face blackpool (away) and peterborough (home) before the captain returns to duty away to scunthorpe. after this comes an FA CUP tie away to huddersfield, and then two very tough and important league matches: home to nottingham forest and away to newcastle. these two fixtures are indeed huge. there is a real chance to get back in the driver's seat as far as automatic promotion is concerned and to gain ground on challenging for top-spot. the baggies will have to be at their absolute best in the early new year in order to take full advantage of the opportunity.



the defense has been good lately, and should probably be forgiven for yesterday's temporary lapse that more or less allowed whittingham to walk into the albion half from the centre-circle in the 18th minute and get a good enough look at goal that carson had no chance on the shot. it sounded as if cech was probably the one that didn't get in and shut him down, and to be fair, he's been playing a lot more in the midfield this year than at left back.

the baggies have to figure out how to play against this type of tough defensive setup. it has tripped them up against crystal palace, swansea, and now cardiff (barnsley was just bad all around). what the team has to learn, is that when their midfield link-up play with the forwards is being disrupted to the degree it was against any of these teams, they'll have to sit back in a tough defensive setup themselves and try to pull the other team forward, open the game up and get the opposition to engage in playing football.