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the average west bromwich albion supporter is more likely to suffer a greater degree of anxiety at the baggies scoring first and having to defend a one-goal lead than they would having them concede first and then having to go on and score two or three goals. even the vic buckingham sides of the 1950s were prone to slow starts and coming from behind to win games. so it was of little concern - and following the standard script - that ex-west brom loan signing, jay simpson, scored on 13 minutes to give the rangers an early 1-0 lead even before the albion had had any decent possession of the football.in an unusual plot-twist, though, the game was then lost five minutes later when matthew connolly attacked the albion penalty area unchallenged to hit the ball past scott carson to put QPR two goals up. it was evident at this point that no matter what brilliant individual or team efforts the albion are capable of producing, they were never going to win this one and most of us who were watching or listening, i imagine, started looking towards a 2-2 draw as the best possible outcome. on the day that would have been an acceptable result.
however, with the strange and exciting dynamics that make up championship football, a positive outcome for rangers was probably always on the cards from the minute that neil warnock walked in the door to take over as manager earlier in the week. i don't know what it will do for them next week or the week after that, but for the moment, the arrival of one of english football's great characters at loftus road has given queens park rangers something extra on the day that they never allowed the baggies to really get anything going.
i was reminded of the baggies' first away defeat to barnsley by this one... in more ways than one.
typically - and as he has so often done in the past - the lone albion goal was scored by chris brunt. whether against arsenal or accrington stanley, playing well or not, the northern ireland international scores goals, creates goals and urges the team into attack in the face of the most hopeless situations. again it was brunt's eye for the game, his ability in seeing all immediate possibilities, assessing the right move and then having the technique to pull it off that makes him one of the better players in league football today. with several options open in the albion attacking move, brunt's quick decision to loop a pin-point header over rangers' keeper, ikeme, produced the only west brom goal on the day in another of brunt's individual moments of vision and inspiration.
the baggies were in control for long periods of the match after this, and indeed the 2-2 score-line that the albion support was anticipating appeared imminent until a shot from a free-kick was bungled by the albion defense and the ball managed to bounce off the post, back across goal and cross the line for the final 3-1 score.
despite this dropping the baggies to third in the table, they still have a game in hand over nottingham forest - who jumped back into second-place with a late 1-0 victory over swansea. so the baggies are still "in the driver's seat", as they say, for automatic promotion. while i expect a lot of baggies fans are reaching for the panic button, we've got to remember that with leicester city and swansea likewise gaining no ground on the weekend, we're still in a two horse race with forest.
while a draw between nottingham forest and swansea would have been the ideal, today i'll take a forest victory as second option since the baggies have a big game with swans coming up and i'm much more wary of swansea challenging for second place at the end of the season. i think them much more of a potential threat than forest - especially for a team like the albion! so, all-in-all, i think that the damage on the weekend is minimal and we've just got to keep perspective and maintain belief in our baggies. we have a load of home games coming up and i can't see them turning in this type of poor performance on a consistent basis.
with james morrison making his first start in over 11 months, and ishmael miller coming on in the second-half as substitute, we're reminded once again that we're still not seeing the albion at full-strength; and indeed, might not see a really, really strong albion side until the last three or four games of the season! so, in some ways, i think you could probably congratulate roberto di matteo already, because unless we really have a sudden, drastic and extended loss of form we're already pretty much assured a top-six finish, and we're still probably going to finish second in the league and gain automatic promotion. whatever the gaffer will have achieved on the year, he has done it with a team that has been missing some really important players - and some for extremely long periods of time.
while this wasn't such a terrible result when considering what happened to leicester city and swansea this weekend, what the albion probably did lose today - and with newcastle thrashing barnsley by the score of 6-1 - was a chance at the league title, which has otherwise been a realistic goal all season.
i now concede that newcastle united is in all probability going to win the division - and well ahead of schedule. on the other hand, while the baggies will still probably edge it for the second automatic promotion place, we're going to have steel ourselves a bit and set our minds to the fact that it is going to be hard fought, nervy and will probably not be decided until sometime during the last run of matches against doncaster, middlesbrough, crystal palace and barnsley. but then, would you expect anything different from west bromwich albion?
