Going Where and for How Long?!?!?

in my blog after saturday's loss to stoke city i called for roman bednar to start this weekend against everton. from what i was seeing in the birmingham press, the BBC, and online fan forums, i more than half knew he was on his way out on a loan deal to leicester. however, until it happens he's still part of the team. truthfully, i think the baggies need to change things up a bit and he'd be worth a start for this saturday's match at goodison park, however unlikely it seems at this point.

in fact, bednar was not the subject of initial interests in the idea to loan out one of the first-team strikers to leicester city. originally, the foxes were going to take ishmael miller on loan, and there seemed no question that it was a move designed to give the baggies' long-time injured striker an opportunity to find some match fitness after nearly a two-year lay-off. however, miller again picked up a minor abdominal injury in training prior to the move, and this prompted sven-goran eriksson, in his apparent need for a striker, to switch his attentions to bednar, who - according to all the regular media sources - looked set to go on loan to hull city.

from all reports bednar is unhappy with life at the hawthorns. apparently, he does not want to leave the club but is frustrated at the lack of playing time he's gotten this year. as for west brom's intentions in regard to their two veteran strikers, it's pretty clear that the gaffer wants to keep miller in the sqaud and needs to place him in a medium that will help him to regain his form and fitness. i'm pretty sure we'll still see ishmael miller start for the baggies sometime in the future.



however, i have an unhappy feeling about roman bednar. unless you're actually hanging around the hawthorns all day, watching the training sessions and keeping an eye on movement around the gaffer's office, it's hard to tell what's really going on. but my instincts tell me that bednar, like robert koren before him, has fallen out with di matteo and west brom will be looking to a permanent move for the czech striker in the new year.

i sincerely hope i'm wrong.

i've never been a fan of marc-antoine fortune, and i feel that he was brought to the club under pressure from both within and without the west brom organization. for me, his return always smacked of optimistic desperation, and his re-signing with the club was more the lack of confidence in bednar and miller, fuelled by football pundits in the mainstream media and the increasing influence of internet fan forums, than anything else.

for a newly promoted club, there is always much discussion, opinion and speculation about whether certain members of that team will be good enough to play at the next level up. signing fortune was just a reaction to popular perceptions of west bromwich albion and general assumptions about the level of quality and ability in their players.

both bednar and miller were part of the baggies side which was relegated from the PREMIER LEAGUE in the 2008-09 season. there is no doubt that this colours the public perception of their worth as players. it's fair to say that to say that miller and bednar are all too often patronizingly characterized as "good CHAMPIONSHIP players" but not good enough for the PREMIER LEAGUE.

however, i believe this overlooks the challenges that each of them had to deal with during the last top-flight campaign. miller was the preferred striker in the introduction of a 4-5-1 formation. this was most unusual as under tony mowbray west brom had always played a very orthodox system featuring two strikers. however, he seemed to put a great deal of time and energy into making his new system work and making miller the focus of their attack. i believe that it was something to which miller was not naturally suited save for his obvious talents as a counter-attacking forward. he was having to learn a whole new way to play and it took some time.



the other key factor in all this, due to player departures from the club, was that it was not nearly as good a footballing side as it had been when they won the CHAMPIONSHIP the year before, and they went into the the season pretty thin at some crucial positions. there's no doubt in my mind that they both would have been better players had they been on a better team.

unfortunately for ishmael miller, after having a scored a goal at newcastle and looking like he was coming into form, the baggies' striker was injured in a collision with portsmouth's david james that saw him out of the team for most of the next two years and without a league start for 14-months. he never really got a chance to prove he could play successfully in the premiership.

bednar did ok and scored a fair number of goals given the playing time he got. in the short term following the injury to miller, the gaffer implemented a relatively successful system of rotating utility strikers which included bednar, craig beattie and luke moore.

i have never understood this, as bednar's style would have been much more suited to a 4-5-1 attacking formation, but mowbray just would not play that particular system without ishmael miller and the baggies - to be fair to the gaffer - targeted and fashioned two important wins against tottenham and manchester city with bednar, moore and beattie all scoring important goals.

fortune came into the side and was the focus of much optimism and excitement. his pre-requisite physical attributes and european pedigree created expectations almost immediately. he scored 5 goals in 18 games and eventually left to play for tony mowbray when he took the manager's job at celtic. i believe he scored 12 goals in the SPL and it remained a common wisdom that fortune was a PREMIER LEAGUE striker where bednar and miller decidedly weren't.



with the former belief widely held, ishmael miller still picking up training injuries and the club in need of strikers for the upcoming PREMIER LEAGUE campaign, west brom brought fortune back to the club from celtic, together with peter odemwingie, a nigerian international from lokomotiv moscow.

odemwingie surprisingly started upon arrival at the hawthorns and was an immediate sensation, scoring the winning goal in the baggies' first win of the season, a 1-0 victory over sunderland at home.

since then, odemwingie has become the first choice striker, missing only a couple of matches through minor injury. with fortune as the apparent second-choice, bednar has recently been limited to two short appearances as a late substitution in league matches, where he has looked more like a snarling pit-bull who has just gotten a frustrating sniff of raw meat before being put back in the cage than a centre-forward.

meanwhile, it looks like they're going to keep miller at the club and figure out some way of getting the 24-year old fit again after a continuous string of injuries which continues to interrupt his career.

i'm sure that the baggies will make a move for a quality striker (there are rumours of interest in sanli tuncay of stoke city) in january and get by on being a little thin in that department until then. however things turn out - and barring his recall to the team much as craig beattie was brought back from sheffield united last year - we may very well have seen the last of roman bednar in the navy-and-white stripes.

i shall always remember his time at the hawthorns fondly and will continue to follow his career and cheer for his success wherever he goes.