Coventry City 0-0 WBA

at the beginning of this year's season i found myself waiting eagerly for saturday to roll around. three out of the first four or five albion matches were televised; and by the time i went to england in early september they were on a five-game unbeaten streak. i attended both of the next two games at the hawthorns, which saw them extend the run further, by virtue of two 3-1 victories over plymouth and doncaster respectively; and the day before i came home the baggies thrashed middlesbrough at the riverside 0-5. i listened to that match live on the internet through ALBION RADIO, and returning home i was able to see it as a repeat broadcast on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA. there was every reason to feel positive and continue to look forward to saturdays with the gleeful anticipation that a winning side breeds in its supporters.

live text replay

since my return to canada, however, west brom have been knocked out of the league cup 2-0 by a young arsenal side, dropped two home matches 0-1 to both crystal palace and swansea city, lost away to barnsley by a score of 3-1, and produced two 0-0 results away to preston north end and coventry city - their only win in the last six league matches being a 3-1 home victory against a decidedly poor reading side.

i now wait for match-day with a desperate hope that the albion can find their early season form again, and dread the prospect of more losses and goalless draws. what is going on here?!?!

the truth is, even during their unbeaten run, the team has not yet lived up to its potential. but instead of the break-out that i was expecting that would see at least one of the strikers finding a hot hand, and the baggies taking a clear-cut control of the division, i now find myself waiting desperately for another win, anticipating a struggle for a play-off spot, and listening to everyone talk about bloody kevin phillips again!

when tony mowbray left the club to go and manage celtic, west brom did well in finding roberto di matteo. while i had my doubts about him at first, he was able to instantly revitalize many of the players who had either struggled or gone unused under mowbray, and i don't think there is a single albion supporter who didn't eventually welcome what seemed at the time a real breath of fresh air.



i have found that there are generally two schools of thought as to what the baggies need at the moment. one group is concerned about the albion's ability to keep clean-sheets and improve defensively, while the other believes that they must find goals up front, with only 2 of the last 15 coming by way of the strikers. i am of the latter opinion.

the fact is that an albion striker has not scored a goal since september 19th, and all the clean-sheets in the world will do nothing but produce goalless draws without a decent offensive output; and you can't expect the midfield and fullbacks to produce the goals with the frequency needed at the moment - especially with chris brunt, the club's leading scorer, out of the side due to injury.

what is confusing me most is the gaffer's reluctance to play simon cox, who in league 1 and playing for swindon town, was joint top-scorer in the country last year. while his start against rotherham in the league cup was not a particularly distinguished performance, he did score the winning goal. as well, he redeemed himself further by playing well in the subsequent cup fixture with arsenal, but has not been able to break in as a starter in the league matches; and his appearances as a substitute have not given him enough time to settle in.

with both the january transfer window and the return of ishmael miller still a couple of months away, i cannot understand why he has been given only one start (v plymouth) in the league this year, with di matteo preferring to play luke moore, roman bednar and even young chris wood over the ex-swindon town sharp-shooter?



i would suggest that it's time to make a change and take some chances. i was surprised today, for example, that di matteo did not start cox. bednar was out of today's match - having been injured in the first few minutes against reading - and with luke moore having lost his early season form, i didn't think the gaffer had much of a choice. instead, he once again started moore, and had midfielder robert koren playing in an advanced position, similarly to how mowbray would use jonathan greening in the "ishmael miller project" formation of last year.

personally, i would have started wood and cox in a regular 4-4-2 formation today and see how they got on. despite only one goal on the season, wood has shown some skill and proved useful at using his size and strength to hold the ball up, but we still don't know anything as to how simon cox plays at this level in the league.

i think the gaffer was after victory through keeping a clean sheet today, and assuming that one of the midfielders could score at least one goal, this might have been the case. but i just don't think that a defensive approach is the way an albion team should be playing. especially if none of the strikers are scoring. while the albion have had a couple of excellent defensive teams over the years (the 92-93 team, for example, had 27 clean-sheets whilst recording 17 1-0 victories), they still needed the likes of cyrille regis, laurie cunningham, bob taylor and andy hunt to knock in goals up front.

there are no mid-week matches this week, and it is very likely that bednar will be back in the side next saturday against watford. still, i will be disappointed and perplexed if simon cox does not start next week.

WBA 0-1 Swansea City F.C.

this was a bad day all around. my internet was not working for much of the match, and i had to keep tabs on the game through the BBC live text commentary when i was able to.

i caught the first fifteen minutes and the last five of the first half on ALBION RADIO; then i could only connect for the last fifteen minutes of the game.

live text replay

with city coming to the hawthorns, this was the toughest match and the most in-form performance of any team that the baggies have had to deal with thus far this year - including the opener against newcastle. the albion were lucky enough on the day to hang on to first place, by virtue of the toon's loss to scunthorpe - so thank god for life in the championship! however, this can't go on without seeing an eventual downward movement in the standings.



the baggies have now dropped 11 out of the last 15 points available.

while no one played particularly well at all yesterday, i was still expecting one of the strikers to break out and start scoring. in light of this, yesterday's loss was doubly ironic.

the arrival of roberto di matteo saw countless individuals on the team re-vitalized and the new gaffer seems to know how to use his players better than tony mowbray did. both luke moore and craig beattie started out the season looking completely different players to last year. moore scored a couple of goals just for fun, and beattie really found his touch in the cup games, putting in 2 real quality goals against rotherham.



since then, moore has not been able to find his form following a short recurring injury, and beattie was sold to swansea city the day after the cup game against rotherham. roman bednar has not scored since the match away to middlesbrough. simon cox has still to open his league goals account, and he needs more opportunity as a starter. while chris wood has been doing a good job at holding up the ball and setting up goals, he still has only scored once on the season.

the double irony of yesterday's loss is that craig beattie, who scored the winning goal for swansea, is still one of albion's top scoring strikers on the year. the problem could not have been illustrated more clearly nor the reality of the moment more stark.

i found it disappointing when they sold beattie, as he was playing well and would've been useful outside his role as a starter for cup games; but i did not think it would have an impact on the club's form. today it appears to reflect a minor disaster.

WBA 3-1 Reading F.C.

no TV for this one again, so i had to listen online.

live text replay

other than putting the baggies back on track, it didn't seem there was much to this match; although an albion victory is always a reason to cheer and would've been a fun match to watch, especially live at the hawthorns.

marek cech is emerging as my latest hero to wear the navy-and-white stripes. i can't understand why he was so under-used with tony mowbray in charge? it was our first game of the season without chris brunt where he wasn't sorely missed with both cech and jerome thomas filling in admirably as starters.

despite being signed to play left-back - which kept him out of the team with paul robinson being the gaffer's preferred starter - cech is a much more versatile player than that, and seems to be finding a more natural role as an attacking wide-midfielder. in fact, he was unlucky not to have scored a least a goal in this one as he had enough chances that he could've scored a hat-trick!

unfortunately, the baggies are still having problems with none of their strikers being able to find form since luke moore's recent injuries and the selling of craig beattie to swansea city. roman bednar was injured in the first five minutes, but luckily it was nothing more than a pinched nerve, which will see the czech international out of the side for only a game or two.



chris wood continued in doing a good job as substitute, and had a hand in the making of two of the albion goals.

this was a very typical performance by the albion; being slow to start and conceding first before finding 3 goals of their own. this was the third game of the season where the baggies have followed almost an identical script when faced with not particularly strong opposition at home. they gave away early goals to both plymouth argyle and doncaster rovers before scoring 3 themselves. however, they've been having to rely on the fullbacks and midfielders to produce their goals, with jerome thomas emerging as the 2 goal hero in this one and mulumbu adding the third to seal all three points. indeed, in all three of these wins - which in total produced 9 goals, only one was scored by a striker with chris wood's first goal for the club in the match with doncaster.

despite the victory - which is always a happy circumstance however it was made - nothing much has changed since last week. the strikers have to find their form before this team really starts living up to its potential. this was not a particularly good reading side and the score could've been 5 or 6-1. despite having moved back into first place, let's hope this happens sooner rather than later or west brom might find themselves struggling and playing in fits and starts.

PNE 0-0 WBA

i woke up at 7.00 AM last saturday morning to watch this one live on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA. it was a little better than the last two albion performances, and considering that this is a fixture that the baggies have not won in 50 years, seems a poor result only by virtue of their recent back to back losses, home to crystal palace and away to barnsley.

graham dorrans was the best of the baggies' players on the day and seems to have gotten over the idea that he is the next paul scholes. this was illustrated most clearly in the fact that the young mid-fielder had the only real clear-cut scoring chances on the day, and a quick reaction by lillywhites' keeper, andy lonergan on a late header by dorrans in front of goal was all that was needed for both sides to maintain a clean-sheet.

live text replay

i haven't really got any complaints; although, i still don't think we've seen the best of this year's baggies yet and can only hope that they get the timing right in terms of form over the course of the year. when the baggies last won promotion from this division they spent most of the season in 2nd place behind watford and later stoke city. both watford (in the long-term) and the potters (in the short-term) were prime example of what happens when you peak too early in this division. watford fell away the last 15-20 games of the season and finished sixth; good enough for a play-off spot, and stoke - who rather looked like running away with the division after taking over 1st place in march - similarly ended on a run of poor results and the baggies won the championship trophy.

the problem right now is solely the lack of offensive output on the part of the forwards. it's all very well to imagine the outcome of what in themselves must be highly speculative talks - with sol campbell and thinking about getting the team playing higher quality stuff at the back; but, more importantly, the strikers have to start scoring goals before the albion start winning consistently again.



maybe it's a good thing that they've had a sudden poor run of form so early in what certainly looked more than a promising season at the outset? there are certainly lessons to be learned and this was another rough reminder of life in the champonship.

i'm sure that one of the strikers will emerge fairly soon, and who knows, with ishmael miller expected back within weeks after christmas break it could be a high-scoring season yet?

in the meantime - and let's hope that luke moore finds his early season form again after a month of injuries, and that bednar, cox and wood find their form soon. at this rate, i think di matteo could even afford to give cox and wood more starts and see how they get on over a full 80-90 minutes of league football.