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roberto di matteo outguessed me this week - and i have to admit, it worked!i had given up on the 4-5-1 attacking formation; as had the gaffer to some extent, i think. at half-time against spurs he had the good sense to realize that peter odemwingie can't play on the wing. so, in starting both fortune and odemwingie (in a central position today) he had, more or less, returned to the idea of having two strikers and a formation resembling an orthodox 4-4-2.
the problem, as was evident in the first half of the match - and against a good defensive team like blues - was that this left the baggies being outplayed by a five-man midfield who were able to take their one opportunity, with cameron jerome tapping the ball into an open net on a well worked free-kick from sebastian larsson to give blues the lead through half-time.
while city dominated the first-half, it was a game of holding the ball in the midfield and the baggies still had the greater number of shots on goal. there was a decent long-range effort from chris brunt; as well as paul scharner getting on the end of a cross at the far post which he might have done better with, not realizing how much time he actually had; and a misplaced header from fortune on a cross from gonzalo jara also went narrowly wide.
unlike his predecessors, who tended to stick to principles and ideals rather than making tactical changes, roberto di matteo does take serious chances and will change tactics freely when he needs to. this tendency first became evident last season when he made the changes during a match that led to the current 4-5-1 setup to which he has since remained true.
he had found this necessary when jerome thomas was injured and he brought robert koren on to play right-wing. this moved chris brunt to the left-wing and the gaffer added a series of rotating midfield players (ben watson, steven reid, giles barnes, james morrison etc.) in place of the second striker. this remained their starting formation for the rest of the season - and to great success.
last week, against spurs, the gaffer finally realized that it was not a good idea to keep odemwingie out on the wing, since the nigerian striker has no idea how to track back and cover in this position. it was a fundamental weak-link and, in the bigger picture, was probably responsible for the loss to liverpool. with odemwingie in the centre behind fortune, the baggies dominated spurs in the second-half and really should have taken all three points.
today, with fortune not really able to get into the game and odemwingie looking the more enterprising and involved of the two strikers, di matteo returned to the full-blooded 4-5-1 with graham dorrans coming on replacing fortune for the restart. this proved a stroke of genius as the albion went about taking apart one of the best defenses in the premier league with its trademark attacking midfield.
graham dorrans, who seemed to struggle in the first few matches and was out of the side for the home match with tottenham, finally exerted his influence on the play with the baggies obviously the brighter team right from the kick-off of the second period. they equalized early through a penetrating run by thomas, who cut in from the wing and slotted a pass to odemwingie which ultimately flew into the birmingham goal off the heel of defender scott dann.
the second albion goal came through a critical mistake in defence, as lee bowyer failed to control on the edge of his own penalty area allowing odemwingie the chance to pounce and cut to the outside of blues' keeper, ben foster, turning the ball home, again off the unfortunate scott dann.
the match was put beyond question when jonas olsson headed home a chris brunt corner-kick in the 67th minute, and the baggies looked every inch a competitive premiership side.
i have long said that i believe that this is the best baggies side in many years - even perhaps the best since the early 80s. while i have to admit that up until today, my aspirations of a mid-table finish have seemed like they might realistically be nothing more than hopeful and overly optimistic. today was the first time that i really sensed there is more capability than mere survival in this team. while it may not come as easily or as regularly as it did last year, we are certainly going to see more success in the premier league than many of the pundits were predicting at the outset.
this is a very good west brom side.
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