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there are several different ways to lose in football. some are unnacceptable, some are undeserved and others are just plain unfair. while the baggies' opening day abberration at stamford bridge was a decidedly unnacceptable loss, today's match away to liverpool was anything but. it was a game lost in one of those dramatic moments with which every football fan is all too familiar. with the play being sufficiently stretched, it becomes inevitable that one team or the other is either going to score a well worked, hard fought goal or concede on the counter. the albion sensed their opportunity for a possible winner and were ultimately victims of their own ambition.with the baggies piling on the pressure, right-back, gonzalo jara, had two clear-cut chances at the liverpool goal from 6 or 7 yards out. the first shot was blocked but the ball fell to him for a second which was then saved by a diving pepe reina. the albion were caught out at the back. after a quick release by reina - and within just 19 seconds - the baggies had conceded at the other end to a fernando torres volley on a cross from dirk kuyt. however cliche it may sound, the premier league is indeed cruel to those who are unable to take their chances when they appear. ultimately, the albion put in a good performance and as supporters we'll all come out of this one confident of survival in the premier league campaign of 2010-11; and for better or worse, that seems to be what matters.
where we might have thought, oh no! here we go again!!! after the opening day calamity at chelsea, today's performance, against one of europe's most famous clubs, could only reinforce the belief that this is going to be west brom's most successful premiership campaign yet, and they'll be quite capable of amassing the 35-40 points needed to survive - and maybe more.
as i would do on most any other saturday morning, i tuned into the ALBION RADIO transmission shortly after 9.00 AM... nothing stunning today, but always worth listening to - especially the weekly insights that one gets as to some of the more specific points and inside workings of the football club. i had to wait until 3.45 in the afternoon to watch the delayed TV broadcast on SETANTA SPORTS CANADA.
at the outset - and despite liverpool's relatively poor start to the season - nobody would have expected anything less than an emphatic victory on the part of the home team. but i came out of this not just disappointed that the albion didn't quite manage to hang on for the draw - i felt as if the baggies were going to win this one.
west brom were especially good in the first half, and despite a few tentative moments on the part of gabriel tamas, the albion defense - and especially jonas olsson - stood firm and showed real character for the first 65 minutes.
nicky shorey got his albion debut and delivered a solid performance at left-back, showing he is a good, sound, technical player; and gonzalo jara - who has struggled a little in the first few games - showed some real enterprise at right-back and injected spark, skill and endeavour into the albion attack.
scott carson, while not having much to deal with before the last twenty minutes, was quite superb, spectacularly saving from point-blank range to prevent a second torres goal late in the match.
graham dorrans, who has been surprisingly quiet in the first few outings, finally began to exert his influence on the game in the second-half and showed that he is settling into the more advanced attacking role he has been forced to take on this season. likewise, fellow scottish international, james morrison, who had not started off well in the first few games either, was back on form and - in tandem with chris brunt - was at the the heart of several enterprising moves forward by the baggies.
with a couple of new faces in the side - and the return of marc-antoine fortune less than 48 hours prior to kick-off - the baggies are going to need to settle. the most pressing question they're going to have to come terms with over the next little while is the issue of roberto di matteo's commitment to the 4-5-1 setup and having to play people out of position to accomodate the system - especially the forwards.
in fact, the liverpool goal might never have materialized had peter odemwingie - a striker who was played on the right wing for this game - possessed more of the training and instinctive positioning sense of a right-winger. for example, i think it was probably odemwingie who had not dropped back into a sufficiently wide defensive position to cover for right-back, jara, when he went forward to directly attack the liverpool 18-yard box. on the other hand, how can anyone not be sympathietic and treat this as anything but a learning experience for the newly arrived nigerian international?
while there were several questionable judgements on the part of the referee - and including legitimate calls for penalties ignored at both ends - the only real injustice was the red-carding of james morrison on a tackle that deserved nothing more than a yellow-card. it was questionable enough a call that you'd think the albion management might think about appealing.
while most albion supporters will come away from this match buoyed by the team's performance and its promise for the future, the baggies were unlucky today and deserved better.
