WBA 1-0 Sunderland A.F.C.

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well, that's more like it!!! the baggies' fifth premier-league campaign has now begun in earnest with a 1-0 home victory over steve bruce's sunderland.

while it's easy enough to point to the difference in quality of opposition between sunderland and chelsea as partly accounting for the victory - as well as the marked difference between west brom's performance of this week and last - but the baggies' return to their aggressive midfield attacking game was really what won albion the match; and i'm still convinced this more natural style of play would have produced - and at very least - a more respectable scoreline in their opening match with the champions.

while retaining the 4-5-1 formation to which di matteo has committed his team, the baggies returned to the ploy of playing two central attackers - as they had done last year - and could have run this game out by a bigger scoreline, and probably deserved at least one more goal on the day. indeed, chris brunt had an exceptonal game and was unlucky when a sure-footed blast from about 25 yards out came booming back off the sunderland crossbar late in the game; and an earlier effort on the volley from a james morrison cross going just agonizingly wide.

whatever it is the gaffer is trying to do, having brunt playing next to dorrans as opposed to behind him is probably the optimal use of brunt's talents at premier league level. james morrison was much improved on the right wing and showed that he does indeed have the little bit of pace that brunt might not. the scottish international was able to penetrate down the flank and deliver several good crosses as well as the crucial final pass that sent new signing, peter odemwingie, through to score the winner.



the other big difference was jonas olsson's reintroduction to the starting line-up. the swedish centre-half's aggressive and spirited play added a great deal of raw determination and direction to a technically improving baggies' defence. this was reflected in scott carson's first clean-sheet of the season - also his first in the premier league in almost two years, and equalling his season total of the ill-fated 2008-09 campaign.

the hero of the day though has to be the albion's newest signing, peter odemwingie, who came into the side less than 48 hours earlier - without adequate time to even get his name in the matchday programme - and proved himself a real striker by scoring a striker's goal with 10 minutes of normal time left. the nigerian international from lokomotiv moscow played well throughout and came close to opening his baggies scoring account in the first few minutes on a near perfect through-ball from chris brunt.

while sunderland were outplayed by the baggies for most of the match, they still managed 50% possession. the black cats, however, continued their poor away form of last year, were uninspired and not of the technical standard or toughness that one would expect from a steve bruce team. they were blunt going forward, and only a couple of good long range strikes - both from open-play and a brace of free-kicks - by keiran richardson threatened to test scott carson at all. despite the prescence of darren bent sunderland were really restricted going forward and seemed to be missing the influence of striker, kenwyne jones, who transfered to stoke city at the outset of the season.

perhaps i was a little hard on di matteo, and the baggies in general, after the opening day thrashing at chelsea. after all, there probably isn't a more difficult fixture in the schedule and the occassion was no doubt overwhelming. while i can rail about the poor choice of playing chris brunt as a defender, or the exclusion of jonas olsson from the starting team, i must concede that chelsea at stamford bridge on opening day is sufficiently disorienting and no place to gauge a new environment. i suspect the baggies may have over-estimated their opponents on opening day and approached the match far too tentatively. on the other hand, every mistake made at chelsea was turned around and the team were scrupulous on their basic technical practices back at the hawthorns. defensive walls linked arms and kept their shape, while defenders threw themselves valiantly into blocks and tackles throughout the match.



marek cech was excellent again at left-back. having been the only one to have had a good game at stamford bridge, the slovakian international is performing with an assuredness and technical skill that has not been seen at this position for the albion in a long time. i think that cech may be one of those players whose game is more suited to the increased psychological demands of the premiership rather than the tougher and more physical style of the football league. gonzalo jara, however, did not acquit himelf so well and the gaffer might think about giving steven reid or even zuiverloon a look at the right-back position.

while i believe that di matteo has learned a lesson about how to use his midfielders and defenders, i suspect that he may start roman bednar in the more challenging away fixtures - like liverpool and manchester united - in order to hold up the ball going forward and press more at the front. either way, i hope they can shake off the opening day experience at stamford bridge and go into these fixtures with some measure of confidence and belief, as well as the will to play some football. otherwise, they run the risk of not having a meaningful, competetive away match until november 1st when the baggies travel to blackpool following visits to stamford bridge, anfield, the emirates and old trafford respectively.

WBA 3-1 Derby County

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given what i was seeing from baggies' fans posting to the BBC 606 following the FA cup loss to reading, i have to say, i can't believe the level of negativity of what i was reading. for one thing, we're supposed to be west bromwich albion supporters and that means that you're certainly not here to celebrate the ritual of perpetual victory. if that's what you're looking for there's always manchester united - and they're much easier to follow than the baggies, choose any medium you will. however, there is no doubt the FA cup loss had further drained the team - both physically through the fact of the replay, and emotionally from the manner of the loss. while i found the online reaction to be generally alarmist and overly negative, the 606 posters are not completely without a reason to be concerned.

i read posts that had already written the baggies off as far as automatic promotion goes, and others that couldn't see the baggies being good enough to even wage a successful playoff campaign. as we have dropped to third in the table for the second time this season and haven't won in four starts, it seemed like good deal of baggies supporters were hitting the panic button or had already given up completely on the albion for the year. you've got to remember that two of the four games without a victory haven't counted in the league. and there's plenty of historical precedent for this kind of loss. this isn't the first time ever that an albion defender has lost their nerve or made a poor decision that caused a shocking and unexpected loss in injury time.



what is true - and should be a point of concern for any supporter - is that the albion are not playing terribly well at the moment. but, there is just enough individual inspiration in the side that they can get through a rough patch like this, still get results and keep pace with their promotion expectations. if you look at the cycle of league fixtures over the course of the season, you'd probably see a definite pattern and what's going on right now isn't something that we haven't experienced before. i still believe that the baggies will be challenging for the league title with newcastle throughout the remainder of the season, and i saw nothing in today's home victory over derby to shake my faith in that belief.

while graham dorrans seems to have gotten all the attention this year, it is chris brunt who drags the baggies forward and pushes the team into attack at the most critical moments. he's a real leader on the pitch and makes a lot happen going forward. there's no doubt that graham dorrans came into the side under much more dramatic circumstances than did chris brunt, but i still believe that brunt is the heart of this year's albion side and his performance has been a decisive factor in regards to our relative success this year.



my view was somewhat vindicated in today's win over derby county. the northern ireland international, controlling a low, sharp pass from simon cox on the wing, single-handedly created and scored the equalizer when the baggies looked as if they were going nowhere, and heading for a truly disastrous loss. he then put the albion ahead minutes later by picking up on some scrappy play in the derby box following an albion corner and took full advantage when the chance fell to him.

the other factor which made the difference and saw the baggies turn this one around was simon cox' inclusion as a substitute for moore - going against the conventional wisdom that the baggies' young striker is unsuited to the team's current 4-5-1 formation. luckily, cox is a tireless runner and his work-rate is good on his worst days. today it really paid off. cox netted the albion's third goal on a through-ball from fellow substitute, james morrison, and clinched an absolutely vital win for the baggies. the three-points - coupled with leicester city's 3-0 win over nottingham forest - puts the albion back into second-place with extra points and a game in hand. with a run of home fixtures coming up and a fair number of players coming back from short-term injuries, the baggies are back in the driver's seat and should be able to challenge for the league title - if not win it outright!

the other thing about BBC 606 that i noticed was the posters quick and easy dismissal of the FA cup in favour of concentrating entirely on promotion. these folks have forgotten how good it feels to win an FA cup. they fail to recognize - even with the current state of english football - that a cup final win, especially the FA cup, is a thing that is remembered and celebrated for years and years after the fact; and a win by a team from the second-tier would be a memory that would last its supporters a lifetime.



roberto di matteo showed a great deal of creativity in his team selection and his use of substitutes in getting today's win. making a full five changes to the starting squad from wednesday night's game, he managed to coax a deceptive 3-1 scoreline from a match that was really sub-par and lacking in any real initiative until the last twenty minutes. the gaffer surprised everybody by taking out both joe mattock and gianni zuiverloon. while marek cech is healthy and it was expected that he'd be given a start today ahead of mattock, it was widely thought that di matteo would still play zuiverloon simply by virtue of the fact that he has no other right-backs in the squad. however, the gaffer moved recent signing gabriel tamas to the right-back position and played abdoulaye meite in the centre.

while di matteo's defensive gambit worked well enough to see to it that they only conceded a single goal, it was once again the baggies' ability to score quickly and make goals out of nothing that won the day.

make no mistake about it, as uninspired as this match was, the last twenty minutes were the most critical football that the albion have had to play this year, and they showed they are a team of no small character - especially in light of the potential lack of confidence that might have haunted them after the crushing manner in which they were knocked out of the FA cup only days ago. today was a huge step towards fulfilling the most demanding of this year's expectations.

WBA 2-0 Scunthorpe United

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who would have imagined, while perusing the fixtures list at the beginning of this year's league competition, that what may be west brom's three or four most vital wins of the season would come against sheffield united, blackpool, plymouth argyle and scunthorpe?

with derby county surprising newcastle united 3-0 on the night, the albion have gone back into first place, are on a seven game unbeaten run and are poised to advance to the quarter-finals of the FA cup. but none of this has come cheaply.

the baggies came into this one needing a largely overhauled starting line-up due to a couple of key short-term injuries, as well as jerome thomas' beginning a four-match suspension which came by virtue of his second straight red-card of the season issued in injury-time against plymouth.

the incident has since escalated as the FA have charged both the albion and argyle with not adequately controlling their players, and thomas may face an extended suspension on a seperate charge of "violent conduct", also brought against him personally by the FA. that's the story as best as i can glean from the mainstream news at the moment.

scunnie have a recent history of having players sent off themselves in this fixture. the corresponding match in december - which saw the iron playing well and having equalized early in the second-half, only to see their discipline implode and finish the match with 9-men and on the wrong end of a 3-1 scoreline.

while they only had one player sent off in this one, it wasn't the turning point that it served in the previous encounter and - as with the last two matches for the albion - this was a scrappy little game with few chances made and fewer taken.



roman bednar is back at his absolute best and scored just on 13 minutes to give the match what would be a long-standing 1-0 scoreline. truth to tell, when the baggies get themselves one goal up in a low-scoring game it's always a nervy affair. for a team that have won 17 matches to date there are a surprisingly low number of 1-0 wins. in fact, there are just two of them: the first against nottingham forest back in august and last weekend's win at plymouth. so you can see why defending a one-goal lead over 77 minutes might seem an anxious proposition for any baggies supporter?!?

di matteo wasted no time in giving the latest addition to the team a start in the likes of teenage striker, frank nouble, who has just come on loan from west ham, and is probably - given his level of talent - a short term deal that the gaffer has made to fill some essential gaps at a critical time of the season. having acquitted himself adequately over the course of the match, he in turn came off for the other new boy, andy slory.

with the gaffer's tactical substitutions in the blackpool match having unluckily backfired on him and ishmael miller picking up an ankle injury which will push his recovery back two or three weeks, di matteo had little choice but to look out a couple of loan deals in order to soldier on.



one thing that has to be credited to roberto di matteo this year is the belief he has instilled in the entire squad, and the ability to get players to perform and make functional, practical contributions at critical moments. today it was gianni zuiverloon who kicked in with a goal that sealed the victory when the match looked like it might be in danger of ending with everyone on level-terms. zuiverloon - and not for the first time this season - showed why he one day might be a truly great name in english football.

i am somewhat perplexed by a player like zuiverloon. like his team-mate, marek cech, he possesses skills more associated with a winger or mid-fielder than that of a fullback. however, the albion have - and since the days of bobby robson and don howe - always had a tradition of adventurous and offensively minded fullbacks capable of chipping in goals when needed. while cech has been used out of position and is a very adaptable player in that sense, zuiverloon has (save for a few minutes as a sub in the blackpool match) thus far exclusively played from the right-back position. with recent injuries and jerome thomas' suspension to deal with, di matteo might finally find a different starting role for the young dutch fullback.

as the albion now prepare to kick on and play away to reading this weekend for a place in the quarter-finals of the FA cup, the gaffer is going to have to show off his management skills to maximum effect. besides the immediate injury issues, it has been clear that graham dorrans and chris brunt are beginning to show signs of wear and at least one of them is going to have sit out a game - and sooner rather than later! while the loss of either of these key players is a serious adjustment - and even on half steam both dorrans and brunt are capable of making things happen and producing goals. they have also been the two penalty takers this year.

i'd hope to see brunt start with an eye to making a tactical substitution (and depending on the score-line) in the second-half to give him a rest. i would start robert koren in place of dorrans, and simon cox as the attacking mid-fielder or deep striker. and in the event of a penalty just hope that a taker emerges. still, it's quite possible that both dorrans and brunt will be rested for this match - they both certainly need it; and i can never quite guess when the gaffer is going to use simon cox.

Two Scrappy Little Wins

Plymouth Argyle 0-1 WBA

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with the baggies coming out of their trip to blackpool rather like the walking wounded, the gaffer gave simon cox his first start in over a month. i like simon cox and hope that he sees cultivation of his talents and potentials; and along with it creates a long and successful career at the hawthorns.

to vindicate my belief in the young striker, his form held up from where he had left off by scoring the winner in this one on the 66th minute. while he's still many seasons from developing the relative class of skill, there are shades of kevin phillips both in form and function about young cox.

this was a starting line-up that i have wanted to see, and the combination of bednar and cox in a forward pairing had yet to really be used by di matteo. the significant result of this being that the baggies now find themselves with two strikers who are in form, and are fulfilling the requirements of the current roles within the gaffer's tactical planning and line-up selection. that is, the big starting striker scoring consistently and prolifically and the utility striker supplying goals when desperately needed.



while this wasn't a particularly good match, it was a rare clean-sheet and an unusual single goal game for the baggies. true to form, it felt like a draw for most of the match. even after the goal, the albion's proclivity for not protecting single-goal leads well gave this one its only real tension, and the team have to be commended for just grinding it out and winning another match in less than attractive fashion.

the one controversial moment that has added to roberto di matteo's present managerial challenges was the dismissal of jerome thomas on his second straight red-card of the season which will see the winger gone for a full four matches.

as with their performance against blackpool this was not beautiful football and was another example of how good teams win even when playing poorly. as routine as these wins might seem when considering things in context to the season's fixtures list, neither came easily; and with the temporary loss of thomas, miller and marek cech, it's lucky that the gaffer has had the foresight to start making the loan deals to see through what is a truly critical time with both a promotion push and FA cup competition still to contend with. the albion are now once again poised to challenge for first-place in the league and have created the very real possibility of a title battle with newcastle.

in spite of everything else the cost of these two scrappy little wins has probably been worth it.

Blackpool F.C. 2-3 WBA

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while the albion took advantage of nottingham forest's first defeat in months to leapfrog back into second place - and are now in the driver's seat as far the automatic promotion places go - they did so in questionable style and only by virtue of the good fortune that winning teams make for themselves which will see through a poor performance to gain a full 3-points. this is what is known in some schools as "winning ugly".

to be fair - and despite the recent addition of gabriel tamas playing in the first team - roberto di matteo had literally worn out his back line by starting the same 11 over a very congested period of fixtures which included five league games and an FA cup draw. in fact, both jonas olsson and marek cech seemed so bruised and beaten for the last 25 minutes of the match and it sounded as if the big swedish defender was lead-footed, lethargic and unable to get to the ball; while a spontaneous hamstring pull eventually pushed left-back cech forward into a hobbled front line alongside ishmael miller, who himself had sustained an ankle injury in winning the game saving penalty converted by graham dorrans. this whole unfortunate situation was ultimately forced due to roberto dimatteo's early - and ultimately unlucky - tactical substitutions and it seemed like half the team finished the match hobbled, exhausted and within no more than 30 seconds short of a blackpool equalizer.

while it was not reported as controversial in the mainstream press, the points of view as to whether the tackle on miller that led to the winning penalty were debated hotly and reported very differently by the media representatives of both clubs. if you were listening to the blackpool transmission it was reported that the penalty decision was unfair. the albion commentary declared it a stonewall penalty. in fact, ian holloway - one of my favourite talkers on the subject of football, by the way - refused to speak to the albion commentary staff after the match having asked them if they really thought it was a penalty or not and receiving an affirmative response did something like call them a couple of rude names, make a disparaging remark about honesty and partisan journalism and slammed a dressing room door on them.

having watched the replay myself, i have to come down on the side where my biases lay: it was indeed a penalty! while the blackpool defender may have got the ball on the initial slide to make the tackle (and i'm not even sure about that) there is no question that as ishmael miller continued his run in on goal, he was tripped by the full-back's outstretched leg. it was a penalty and should have been a red card - and probably would have been had the defender not made the initial tackle successfully.

while di matteo's substitutions seemed like a good idea at the time, beginning with the baggies' latest acquisition, andy slory coming on for an obviously fatigued jerome thomas. this didn't seem a a bad move at all given the recent schedule and no change to the line-up in six matches. slory actually saw a good effort saved by the blackpool keeper on his first real touch of the ball.



this was followed by the early introduction of ishmael miller. usually the big striker has been coming on for the last 20-15 minutes of the match in a measured regimen designed to ease him back into 90 minutes of football after a lay-off through injury which lasted over a year. he replaced bednar with about 25 minutes of regular time left, and then a similar like-for like swap had simon cox on for robert koren. both of these substitutions were nothing but tactical and meant to save his strikers and wingers from exhaustion and the subsequent danger of injury.

at the point of substitution, none of the west brom midfield were able to track back and give cover to their corresponding player in the back-line. while dorrans and koren were more unclear about whose role it was to get back and help mulumbu tidy-up; chris brunt and jerome thomas were equally unable to work back and give their corresponding full-backs cover after a loss of possession.

it was a real case of blessing or curse? as things started to unravel after the penalty decision. while it was significant in that it produced the winning goal, ishmael miller suffered a knock on the angle that left him unable to run and he had to limp out the rest of the match with di matteo having made his last substitution in bringing cox on for koren. moments later, marek cech collapsed both spontaneously and well away from the play with what was later revealed to be a pulled hamstring. he pushed forward into the strikers positions - obviously to minimize on the potential harm that a hobbled full-back might cause.

while dorrans converted the penalty that saw the baggies to victory, any injury to miller at this point is a move backward and we can all be thankful it was unrelated and isolated from his larger injury. it was evident from his inability to shake it off and run towards the end of the match that he'll probably be nursing a nasty bruise for the next couple of weeks and will have to continue with plans of rehabilitation through late substitutions after that.

it's evident that - and will be interesting to see - di matteo will have to make a bunch of changes for the away match to plymouth on saturday.

Huddersfield Town 0-2 WBA

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this was perhaps the most unique media coverage of a football match i have ever seen or heard.

usually, the transmission of a match on ALBION RADIO through the PLAYER service on the club website begins about an hour before the match. there is some music played, sometimes it's just the sounds of the stadium PA system; i've even heard the crew doing their setup and mic checks before the game. but today there was nothing. i connected to the albion stream and it was dead. the embedded flashplayer was also indicating that the transmission was OFF-AIR. going back to the website homepage there was a news post about temporary difficulties with match commentary transmission at the galpharm stadium.

i switched to the huddersfield town stream - which transmits commentary from BBC Leeds - and that too cut out briefly at around the 15 minute mark. switching back to the albion stream i found that they had managed to get the transmission started, but were using a cell-phone passed back and forth between the two commentators to call the match on. as you can imagine, the sound was tinny and distorted and you could clearly hear them plugging in the recharger when needed during what was clearly a highly improvised effort. they obviously couldn't find a way to make their usual setup run and were forced to make use of a comically low-tech solution.



as for the match itself, the gaffer gave roman bednar a start with simon cox and put luke moore on the bench for this one. it was obvious, however, the present albion attacking formation with its deliberate lack of width, takes the big czech striker completely out of the game. he didn't really get much of the ball going forward and for the most part made little impact. roberto di matteo will have to put some thought into how he's going to use bednar for the rest of the season.

as usual, the baggies were slow out of the box and scott carson - back from a three game suspension - took command of his penalty area early on with the huddersfield attack looking to set up some good chances in their initial possessions.

the match was more or less what i had hoped for against the only unbeaten home side in the country. i knew this wasn't going to be easy, as the town carry a very big squad and are a fairly large club as far as their current division is concerned. it certainly wouldn't have been a huge upset if they'd scrapped a victory out of this one.

chris brunt looks to be back in form making a couple of good chances for himself, and graham dorrans once again took control of the central mid-field, scoring the first goal of the match to bring his season total to a club-leading 8.

the baggies went two goals up and clinched the match after chris wood came on as substitute. taking a well placed through ball from youssouf mulumbu, the teenage new zealand international used his considerable pace to move to the outside and past the last huddersfield defender, getting the ball on to his right foot and putting a well placed shot past the the town keeper with a great deal of poise and composure for his second score of the season.



the virtue of this baggies team is that it is no way reliant on a single player. while the tactics and play might suffer through chris brunt, jerome thomas, or graham dorrans being injured or not playing well, there is any number of players who are capable of spear-heading the albion attack. along with the three aforementioned players, marek cech, simon cox, luke moore, roman bednar and jonas olsson have all also variously taken turns in leading the team in attack and on at least one occasion each have produced a brace of goals. while graham dorrans came close against scunthorpe, no one at the club has yet scored a hat-trick on the season. in fact, with 48 goals scored in 23 league matches and a further 7 scored over 4 games in cup competitions, there are no less than 15 players who have contributed to the total offensive output.

after several disappointing results (including a 0-2 home loss to cardiff city) the baggies form seems to be on the up again just in time for two truly huge matches against 3rd place nottingham forest at home this friday, and away to league-leaders newcastle on monday night of the following week. they will then resume their FA Cup campaign against either newcastle or plymouth pending the 3rd round replay of that match.

the albion are certainly facing their biggest challenges of the season this next two weeks and will have to be in top form in order to gain maximum points and continue to make something of a cup run.

WBA 3-1 Reading F.C.

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

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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.