Cardiff City 1-1 WBA

live text replay



well, this was a real hard day's night... and another draw for the baggies as they managed to further their unbeaten streak (9 games now) and (at least for the next 24 hours) are again tied with league-leaders newcastle on points, but find themselves in first place by virtue of superior goal difference. the toon have a game in hand and will be home to coventry tomorrow. perhaps the sky-blues and their improved form of late can give the baggies a small helping hand in their push for automatic promotion?

at the outset of the match it was revealed that roman bednar had a back injury and would be sitting this game out. injuries couldn't come much heavier after what the baggies have sustained this last two weeks. funnily enough though, bednar was named as an non-playing substitute, since di matteo now finds himself without enough healthy players to even field a full first team. bednar did no warm-ups, his presence entirely symbolic, and was there only to see that there were enough bums sat on the bench that it might make up a whole squad.



as expected, both new arrivals to the albion, andy slory and frank nouble, got starting spots on the wing and midfield respectively, with albion sticking to the 4-5-1 formation that has been so successful during the baggies' recent run of form. unfortunately, i can never understand why di matteo leaves luke moore as the lone striker, as it is a game most unsuited to the ex-villa striker's style and ability?!?!

back in the "hot media" environment of ALBION RADIO once again, there was a controversial and questionable penalty called on jonas olsson. although, i have a suspicion that any good cardiff-biased commentary would have reported a stonewall penalty rather than a questionable decision. however, i wasn't able to catch up with cardiff city transmission before they signed off as i usually would. peter whittingham promptly dispatched the spot-kick to make it 1-0 to bluebirds. the mainstream press reported no controversy as to the awarding of the penalty.



the baggies were probably the better side on the day and wouldn't have deserved to lose this one. luckily, gianni zuiverloon again provided the heroics by scoring in stoppage-time just before the end of the first half. graham dorrans made the final pass on a move that had started with a scott carson free kick and ended with the young dutch full-back burying the ball in the bottom left hand corner of the cardiff city goal.

i've been contending all year that i don't think we've seen this particular baggies team play up to their real potential - even with the big victories over middlesbrough, watford and sheffield wedneday - and now, i'm not sure that we're really going to get to see a team featuring the likes of roman bednar, ishmael miller, chris brunt, robert koren, simon cox or graham dorrans at their best until next year. although, there is still the possibility of something in the way of cup glory that might produce itself at some point, for the time being, the primary goal is to finish out this season (and all its competitions) on the same note that we started. this is the part of the season where management needs to be at its sharpest and deal with the job at its most desperate.



this was a good point won. cardiff are always a tough side at home and the albion's many draws with blue-birds over the years will attest to this.

in all likelihood - and once these next two or three matches are behind them - the albion will start to find things a little easier, and might even have a full team out by then.

it sounded as if the baggies should have won this one and were superior in all statistical areas. more importantly, the albion had three chances - the best falling for chris wood in the second-half - where they could (and probably should) have scored the winner.