In Search of Reason!

looking at the posts to BBC 606 (and various other online football forums), there is a lot of complaining going on amongst the supporters about lack of transfer activity. i suppose that that's going to be a universal anxiety for the fans of a club coming up from the league and going into the premiership for the fifth time in a decade. the signings will get done, but not until the market begins to close and the serious considerations begin to present themselves.

what i really can't believe is how badly the fans are under-rating the team "as is", and over-rating the prospect of premiership football! it is very negative stuff indeed. especially on the issue of strikers.

nobody seems to be giving ishmael miller much of a chance, for example; despite the fact that he's only 23 and has yet to complete a full season with the club. he was pretty sensational when he came to west brom on loan from manchester city. scoring in his debut, he was called up to the england under-21 squad, nominated for championship player of the month and he netted a hat-trick in the FA CUP quarter-final that year; as well, as forming an impressive partnership with veteran striker, kevin phillips.

in the premier league, however, he was cast by manager, tony mowbray, in a much tougher role of lone striker playing a 4-5-1 attacking formation. while he was hardly prolific, and slow to start, he had recently scored a good goal away at newcastle, and looked to be just coming into form, before a collision with portsmouth goalie, david james, took him out of the game for well over a year.

again - and 14 months later - miller scored on his come-back start for the first team against blackpool, at a crucial juncture in the team's promotion battle. on the subsequent tuesday evening, he scored late-on as a substitute, giving the a baggies an all important 2-0 win away to swansea, and a virtual strangle-hold on automatic promotion. at his best, he is a fast, strong and deceptively skillful goal-scorer.




still, he is a bit of un-known quantity, as he is painfully one-footed (left), seems to be sucseptible to niggly, little injuries that keep him from getting a decent run in the first team; and we don't really know if he's a good premiership player with the ability to improve, or a just a very talented football league player, who would no doubt be able to attain the status of "folk-hero" with a long career at one of the bigger clubs in the championship or league 1?

you would think the faithful might display a little more faith in the former.

the fans are a little more generous with roman bednar. he scored six goals in his last premier league campaign, and even his worst critics are expecting him to go at least one or two better this term. i mean we started last year's campaign with luke moore as the main striker. things would seem a lot better this year, even by the more demanding standards of the premiership.

with bednar and miller as our main strikers - and the impact potential of simon cox - there is still plenty of attacking football to be explored on this team, and i think the supporters are being absolutely ridiculous in their expectations in this regard. certainly, the club needs another big striker to accomadate RDM's apparent tactical formations; but, that's only because we sold craig beattie last year and didn't replace him; whereas, i think the punters are expecting the club to bring in a "proven" 15-20 goal-scorer at premier league level! well it ain't gonna happen!

the premier league can do terrible things to a supporter's level of expectation.

variously there are cries and criticisms in regards to just about everyone except graham dorrans and gonzalo jara. i just can't believe that it isn't so much more obvious to everyone that this is the best baggies side since sometime between 1982 and 1986. by this, i mean, that it might not be as good as the team that lost an FA CUP semi-final to QPR in 82, but is certainly better - and relative to the post premier-league era - than the one that was relegated a few years later.

as usual, the most critical of the punters are pointing back to the issue of jeremy peace not making enough transfer money available. there have even been rumours of JP getting ready to sell the club, which - by the way - i can find no reports of in the mainstream press. however, he is indeed trying to strengthen his financial control and expand his ownership of the club. but after all, he is also a business-man. through a televised BBC interview for the "late kick-off" show last year, i listened at some length to JP speak of his ambitions for the baggies, and i believe he is authentic, and committed to finding a realistic niche for west bromwich albion in england's top-flight - and perhaps, eventually, even beyond.

beside the percieved need of another big striker, there seems an essential and widespread lack of faith among the supporters in the core group of players; and it seems that there is a surprising number of supporters who have never really warmed to roberto di matteo, despite the success, confidence and winning attitude he has brought to the club.




i will concede that while an italian manager who appears to be building a decidedly continental-style side, playing a 4-5-1 formation (or "4-2-3-1" if you like) and featuring two defensive midfielders is decidedly out of character for a club that has been committed to "attacking football" (for better, or worse) for the last half century; but di matteo saw what he had in terms of talent when coming to the club, did the best with what he had, has now quite obviously begun to implement his own vision of football at the hawthorns, and he's probably got some idea of how to go about making it happen.

if you actually read the top writers who follow league football in england, they were all pretty much in agreement when assessing the baggies' premier league prospects, that they were going to need to strengthen their defence significantly if they were to compete. i have even seen criticisms saying that the task may be beyond them, and will be their downfall in surviving the top-flight. no writer i've read, however, was too concerned that the baggies would have any trouble controlling the ball, getting forward or even scoring goals.

we have made some good signings since RDM took over. gabriel tamas, gonzalo jara, steven reid, giles barnes and pablo ibanez. this will strengthen the defending a great deal and the issue of a new goalie is academic. dean keily is moving into full-time coaching and dropping to third choice keeper. so whether it is a definite backup for carson or someone who might challenge for the starter's position, that is yet to be seen, but there will be new goalie at the hawthorns either this year or next. as for this season, the club will eventually find another target man, however humble an acquisition it may be.

i think the baggies will surprise this season. i'm expecting them to finish ahead of blackpool, bolton, blackburn, wigan, and wolves, as definite; and they should be competetive with west ham, birmingham city, newcastle, sunderland, stoke and fulham, depending on these particular clubs' form. even if we aren't, it won't simply be down to the albion's lack of an imaginary £20m centre-forward.

Johnny Too Bad

the true tragedy of last season for the baggies' was without a doubt, the injury that put ishmael miller out for the season. the club not only lost a striker, but due to the constituent nature of last year's team - it lost its focus as well. i think mowbray had put so much time and effort into building a system around the 21 year-old goal-scorer, that when he was no longer available - and with a serious lack of any senior goal-scorers in the club - that it sent the game-plan for the year straight out the window and left only confusion and desperate scrambling as recourse.

this was evident not only in TM having to go looking for whoever he could get on a loan basis, but also left him incapable of committing to any of the other strikers that the club had available. he had the eventual good luck of acquiring fortune - but he turned out to be more of a holding, control forward than an out and out goal-scorer. i can't remember how many times the ball came to him in and around the box, how he skillfully held the ball up, gained control and position and held off defenders, only to find there was no one getting into space on attack. if anyone was going to score, he would have to do it himself - and, indeed, he ended up with a fairly decent record of 5 goals in 17 matches.

simpson never really panned out - although he had his moments - and neither luke moore or roman bednar were really afforded much opportunity by the gaffer; who, and in retrospect, seemed lost for what to do going forward without his pet project. you see, mowbray was setting his team up as a 4-5-1 formation with miller leading the line. although, this formation also saw jonathan greening playing in an advanced position in support of the striker, and in much more of an attacking role than he is used to. once it all started to work - and i think it was probably against wigan and newcastle where this really started to gel - it was like finally seeing the method behind the madness... the idea had been made apparent and had become revealed!

the team saw this development reach its unfortunately early zenith with greening scoring the first goal in the home draw against portsmouth. throughout the early part of the second-half - and with a 1-0 lead - miller was showing menacing pace in several counter-attacks that made it seem only a matter of time before he might score the second and really impress the albion's dominance on the match - as well as vindicate an attacking formation that had long been criticized (and rightly so) for not producing results.





when miller went down under pompey keeper james in an ill-advised, over-enthusiastic tackle that would take him out for the season, there was a sudden and palpable shift in mood on the albion bench. the confusion, loss of focus, and gaps in the playing formation set in as quickly as its development and now apparent and converging success had been long in coming. within minutes, peter crouch - and against the run of play - hit a screamer from about 15-20 yards out and equalized.

i don't know what kind of relationship mowbray had with either bednar or moore; but it was certain that what he'd been working on with miller as the lone striker would not be a role suited to either of these two, and the gaffer even brought craig beattie back from a loan spell while waiting those last few desperate weeks and for the january transfer window to open. in the meantime, mowbray seemed like he just didn't really know what to do, except re-adapt to a 4-4-2 formation, rotate his three strikers in utility roles and target particular games that might be winnable.



even though i have heard no one else make this assertion, but i believe if miller had not gotten hurt the baggies would've stayed up. while mowbray's tactical focus also turned out to be a mistake, in that miller could not be replaced when he got injured - certainly not with the other strikers on the team - it was still tough luck on the gaffer, as he had genuinely invested a lot of time and faith in miller. it took awhile, but at the time of his injury miller had scored 3 goals in 7 games, looked to be on a 4th and really seemed to have hit his stride. the goal against wigan was a perfect example of the exploitation of a defensive mistake at the premiership level. it was opportunistic and finished with a steel-nerve; just as his skill had drawn the newcastle defenders inside with the goalie coming off his line; and then with his pace leaving everyone out of position as he moved the ball outside to the left and placed it neatly into an open goal.



of course, i am excited by the imminent arrival of simon cox. in case you haven't seen him yet, this kid has some really spectacular goals in him, as well as being a prolific scorer. i'm happy that we finally have a manager (or rather more properly now a "head coach") who i think is probably a winner above all, as well as a knowledgeable football mind; and as he is inheriting mowbray's squad more or less intact, i hope he finds a fitting and prominent place for miller in his vision of the albion.

Miller Gone for the Season

well, that's it... the gods of football are just not with the albion this year. the scans on ishamel miller's knee have revealed that the injury he sustained in sunday's match with pompey is not the medial ligament damage (with a minimum of 6 weeks recovery) that TM was expecting immediately following the match when talking to the press. it is much worse. the scans showed that the injury is actually cruciate knee ligament damage that will put miller out for the rest of the season, with a projected recovery time of 6-9 months.

the saddest aspect of this, i think, is that it looked a ball he should never have gone after so vigorously. but to his credit, i think he felt that a goal was coming and he was on pace, looking the most likely to finish in a series of fast breaking moves at goal that the baggies fashioned in the last 20 minutes of the game. his enthusiasm got the better of him and was mangled in going for a ball that always looked to be the portsmouth keeper's, david james. miller got his leg stuck under the sprawling, outstretched james as his body twisted awkwardly forward, causing him to take a head-over-heels tumble with his right leg still trapped, causing the injury. he also required a few stitches in his head.

the great shame of all this is that miller, after a slow start to the season, has scored 3 goals in 7 matches and has been improving with each subsequent performance. he was positively menacing and had been getting by far the better of the play against veteran pompey full-back and england international, sol campbell all day. you could see that he felt that he was on a goal after forcing a good save from david james; and had also managed to get on the end of a couple of good balls into the box. the biggest disappointment, i think, is that it takes miller out of the game at the worst possible time - not only to the baggies season; but as a professional footballer, it's possible that the development, experience and playing time he will miss could have a permanent affect on seeing him reach his true potential as a premier league heavy-weight. he will have lost an entire year now, in a profession that by nature sees generally short careers at the very top-flight. for his own sake, i hope he keeps his head together, but for a 21 year old - and in the game of football, 9 months is an eternity. there is only a certain number of years in your 20s that you can be as big, strong and fast as miller is right now - and he is at one of those crucial junctures where learning his craft is of the essence, and timely recovery and a good head-space is going to be critical for him.

as for the rest of us, i hope he comes back to the game and fulfills his potentials with only some time lost. i've seen too much football in my time that featured short careers and unfulfilled potentials. although it's far too early to be even talking about writing a guy off at 21, there is no telling of what the long term consequences might be, especially psychologically. there's the rest of the season gone - and with whatever might happen to the baggies from here on out - miller will not be a factor and will never know what he might have contributed and gone on to from his recent and developing goal-scoring form.