it's hard to write about pre-season friendlies. especially involving teams with which you are completely unfamiliar. the prime difficulty being that there is no text commentary available. none of the regular sources - like the BBC or the club website - report any of statistics, and you usually can't even find a team-sheet until after the match. what can you talk about with no statistics and not even knowing the oppositions names and numbers?
it is, however, the time of year that fringe players, and players just coming into the club, get some time on the pitch in competitive fixtures and one can begin to make evaluations and read into the manager's intentions somewhat. it's the time of year for speculation and hope. although, and especially with a club like the baggies, who buy carefully and very often don't make their most important signings until the end of the transfer window, things aren't always clear until opening day and sometimes beyond.
for example, peter odemwingie came into the side on the friday before the second match of the season last year. the nigerian striker scored a late winner against sunderland at the hawthorns without even having had enough time at the club to get his name in the match-day programme.
one thing that was clear from this year's pre-season, which included a 3-game tour of the western US, was that the baggies have done things right and will be taking an even stronger team into this season's premier league than last year's squad which managed to achieve a creditable 11th place in the league.
while we may not be able to repeat the same thing next year, we're looking less and less like a team that will struggle, and there is a phenomenal amount of confidence and belief within the environment of the playing squad at the moment.
while there are always the regular grumblings from premier league "purists" who insist the jeremy peace doesn't do enough in terms of "splashing the cash" to ensure continued and future success in the top-flight, but the baggies major coup over the summer was managing to hang on to their best and most important players. despite concerns that a hungry club with money would come calling for odemwingie, or rumours that have persisted for almost a year now linking chris brunt with a move to liverpool, everyone has pretty much stayed, while both brunt and youssouf mulumbu having signed improved contracts recently.
with peter odemwingie staying on as well, and ben foster coming to the club from a troubled birmingham city side, the albion have been able to keep to their long term schedule for building a successful side in a way that jeremy peace has always envisioned for the baggies: constant and incremental improvement from year to year. it may not be the most exciting or flamboyant management style, but last season's mid-table finish should have gone a long way in vindication of the chairman's conservative approach to spending.
as of yesterday, martin fulop signed with west brom, filling the vacant goalkeeper spot left by the departure of boaz myhill to blues and the search for regular football. so the baggies are now left with only the singular problem of finding a striker.
they are also left with the prospect of needing to sell one or two of the veteran squad members. ishmael miller looks like he'll be going to nottingham forest and is scheduled for a medical there within a few hours. hodgson has said that the deal will be a permanent move for the baggies' striker.
i feel badly for miller. i was very hopeful for him as youngster having to meet the challenges of playing a single-striker set-up in the premier league. but just as he was beginning to show his potential and look like a top-flight player, and on the back of several really good goals, he was injured in a collision with then-pompey goalkeeper, david james, and the albion were ultimately relegated. miller came back to score in his first start in 14 months against blackpool, and then got another important goal three days later in a vital win at swansea.
it was a comeback that was never to be, though, as niggling injuries and increasing difficulty getting into the side under roberto di matteo saw him go out on a loan spell at QPR where he really never featured and only scored once - coming on as a substitute - in his half-season at loftus road.
the sad fact is that the club has evolved, and a player like miller needs to be in the first team somewhere and getting regular starts. the albion can no longer really offer him this, as he would be taking his place in the queue behind peter odemwingie, marc-antoine fortuné, somen tchoyi, simon cox and probably even roman bednar. the club has moved on and developed without him.
another face that was conspicuous through absence on the bench for this one was marek cech. while he was a useful player last term in a utility role - playing for nicky shorey and paul scharner when injured - but like miller is a player who probably needs to be in the starting XI and might do well for his career to move on rather than remain at the hawthorns.
with this coming weekend's opener at home to league champions, manchester united, the baggies are just a striker short of where they aim to be. last year - and on the eve of an opening day thrashing at the hands of chelsea - the albion had yet to sign peter odemwingie, paul scharner and somen tchoyi.
with striker shane long from championship side, reading f.c., as their identified target, west brom are miles ahead of where they were this time last year. i can't help feeling that this all bodes well for the coming season.
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