the baggies have overcome the logic of history and beaten arsenal at home for the first time since the 1983, many years before advent of the PREMIER LEAGUE and the north londoners had relocated to their present home at the emirates stadium. the albion have beaten two of the biggest teams in the world inside the space of 4 days and there is now no doubt that this is the best baggies side since cyrille regis was with the club, and the gunners still played at highbury.there are those who will long point to the rejuvenation of the club under gary megson as the high point in management at the hawthorns for the last 20-30 years, but roberto di matteo is rapidly proving his worth as a manager of the first order, and his successes have been more than good fortune or a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
there is no doubt that whatever remains of the team that tony mowbray built, it has now been transformed into a more complete footballing side without having lost the original mandate to play good passing possession football with an emphasis on attack.
di matteo has added considerably to the organization of the team and built the best defensive line since the days of john wile and alistair roberton. the baggies have a mid-field that is competitive with just about anyone in the top-flight, and a crew of strikers featuring a target-man who has been scoring freely since his arrival at the hawthorns. where key figures like chris brunt, youssouff mulumbu, marek cech, james morrison and graham dorrans remained to form the central core of the playing squad, this is di matteo's team and plays to his vision of the game.
when he arrived at the club following tony mowbray's departure for an unsuccessful spell as manager at celtic, di matteo's impact was immediate. he reinvigorated the spirit of players who'd become unhappy and didn't see enough playing time under tony mowbray, and began his tenure with a 9-game unbeaten run capped by a superb 5-0 away win at middlesbrough.
still, mowbray had been a very popular manager for taking the baggies into the CHAMPIONSHIP play-off final and then the PREMIER LEAGUE; and he was regarded with a great deal of respect for being a man of principle who would not resort to poor or ugly tactics, was unfailingly loyal to his starting eleven, and stuck to his game-plan. di matteo has proved a more pragmatic manager, ready to take chances, make changes and seeks victory above all. i'm not sure, for example, that either gary megson or tony mowbray would have the vision, nerve or will to make the the half-time changes that di matteo has made somewhat of a trademark in his management style.
after all, it was a change at half-time in a match last year that led to the gaffer's use of the 4-5-1 setup that served the baggies so well in the second-half of last season's CHAMPIONSHIP campaign. likewise, there were major changes he made at half-time against both tottenham and birmingham city that turned the course of the match and produced a draw and a win respectively.
a highly improved defense - stilled marshalled by jonas olsson - and the arrival of nigerian international striker, peter odemwingie, has seen the quality of the team improve. the baggies are playing very much like they did last season, and have a shown a tendency to concede first, only to reply with two or three goals themselves.
i can't really remember how many times they did this last year. i myself was present at three matches (plymouth argyle, doncaster rovers, blackpool) where they went behind early and scored 3 goals in response. although albion teams have been doing this since the 1950s, the PREMIER LEAGUE of 2010 is probably not the ideal place to continue this practice. it does, however, make for the kind of exciting football that west bromwich albion were once famous for.
the overall effect of di matteo's improvements to the team is a side with enough depth and skill that no one is ever conspicuous by being absent from the line-up. last year, for example, alarm bells would have gone off at graham dorrans, chris brunt or youssouff mulumbu being out of the team. this year, every contingency is covered, a consistent feeling of optimism is running freely throughout the entire squad, and they are no longer dependent on the talent of given individuals to spark their game. this has largely been due to the addition of players like steven reid, paul scharner, somen tchoyi and nicky shorey now making the baggies a team of some fair depth.
with that said, the baggies held their own against an arsenal team that had the balance of control throughout the first-half, and avoided going behind as andre arshavin hit the post in the early minutes of the game. other than this - and despite massive difference in time on the ball - the albion held arsenal to nothing but specualtive, long-range efforts throughout the first period.
it was only a missed penalty by chris brunt, in fact, that kept the baggies from taking the lead after odemwingie was taken down in the box by goalie, manuel almunia. the spanish keeper rightfully should have been shown a red card, at this point, and was lucky to have been given the benefit of the doubt.
brunt's penalty was truly poor, and one could see the northern ireland international change his mind at the last moment as he tried to finesse the ball into the corner of the net rather than just hammer it as he had intended.
in the second-half the baggies took the game to the gunners and deserved their lead when jerome thomas cut down the bi-line brilliantly past defender, bacary sagna, sending in a low cross for peter odemwingie to poke the ball home. the albion went on from strength to stength and dominated the game for the next 20 minutes.
with arsenal still reeling from finding themselves trailing at home, chris brunt once again produced one of his moments of brilliance for which he gets far too little credit. with the ball out on the right wing, brunt worked a very clever back-heel on the return ball in a give and go that sent right back, gonzalo jara, in on goal. the chilean defender beat almunia on his inside-post with a shot the spaniard really could have stopped. inside of 10 minutes of the restart, the albion were quite incredibly two goals up.
this allowed the baggies to continually penetrate deep into the gunner's half on attack, and on 72 minutes, chris brunt made further amends for his first-half penalty miss. with the baggies threatening, the ball came to brunt in front of goal, but his first touch was heavy and appeared to be going out for a goal-kick. however, this pulled almunia out of position and a second touch put the ball beyond the now stranded keeper, leaving brunt merely to cross for jerome thomas to blast the shot into an open goal.
it was only at this point that arsenal were able to respond. with the baggies probably still in a state of disbelief at their three goal lead - as well as the reality of a historic victory now well within their grasp - they conceded to samir nasri after he had hit the cross-bar and the gunners were applying relentless and intense pressure on the albion goal. it was a great individual effort as the frenchman took on two defenders and blasted the ball into scott carson's top right-hand corner. with fifteen minutes left to play, you still couldn't count the gunners out of this one.
nasri again scored in the 91st minute to pull the arsenal to within a goal. in a moment where the baggies centre-halfs were pulled out of position by a direct attack on the albion penalty area, nasri got into the open space and was left with just carson to beat from about 6 yards out. the baggies were going to need to weather the storm for a suspiciously long 5 minutes of time added.
it was the greatest of relief to hear the final whistle. while the 2 goals by the gunners late-on certainly showed the quality of some of their individual players - which is a class apart from a club the size of west brom - the baggies were, without a doubt, the better team on the day. the pop pundits and publications will no doubt focus on how poor arsenal were rather than how good west bromwich albion was. but that completely ignores the fact that over the last three weeks of the PREMIER LEAGUE, the baggies have a better record than manchester united, chelsea, tottenham and arsenal. in fact, they have the best record of any team in the PREMIER LEAGUE since the international break.
as i keep on saying: this is a very good west brom side!
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