The Premier League Upon Us...

as one of the few - and perhaps the only - non-UK bloggers who writes extensively about the baggies, i am reminded by the pre-season of my relative isolation from my subject material.

there are fans who post to online forums, as well as professional journalists of all kinds - and including bloggers - who live in the birmingham area, attend the training sessions and reserve matches, as well as keep an eye on the comings and goings at the hawthorns' parking lot. chris lepkowski - whose blogging, journalism and audio/visual work can be found in the birmingham mail, is probably the most pre-eminent west brom journalist, and his name comes up quite often as a source of accurate news amongst the baggies' online community.

my main source of information - as well as my primary access to most baggies matches this last year - has been the ALBION RADIO transmissions, through the club's website; and featuring dave bowler, west brom's head publications editor, with either duncan jones or chris hall doing the match commentary. i write about west bromwich albion and their coverage through live digital-audio commentaries, overseas television broadcasts and wide ranging, diverse online media resources.





in short, i am the first person i know of to report on west bromwich albion football club through a daily analysis of online digital media - and from an overseas perspective. while the myriad disadvantages to reporting on the baggies from 3000 miles away should be evident enough, there are several advantages that might be easy to overlook. while the quality of "objectivity" is not necessarily a virtue, in and of itself, being removed from the pessimistic humour of the black country - which often converts to an unnatural, painful despair over the subject of football - there is a negativity that never colours my writing. i consider myself the quintessesntial, naive optimist as far as my support for the albion goes - a stance that is much easier to maintain from a distance.

my devotion to the albion aside, there is absolutely nothing black country about me, and i look on my visits to the hawthorns as a day-trip to a strange and exotic corner of the world where one goes for no other reason than football. it is a singularly spiritual experience in a suburban industrial wasteland.

while i do always hope for the best, i don't start every premier league campaign projecting a comfortable mid-table finish. for example, when kevin phillips left and the next signing the club made was gianni zuiverloon, i wasn't particularly filled with confidence as i knew that the club had lost a player that they weren't going to be able to replace, and this wasn't going to be as good a team going into the premiership as the side that had won the championship title the previous season. things just didn't feel right. i still hoped for a mid-table finish, but by late october - and after a good start to the season - it was clear that the club was in trouble. i still remained positive on the issue of survival right up until the loss to liverpool saw them dropped back down to the championship for the following season.





while i have been a bit worried by the lack of goals in this past pre-season - and i have to keep reminding myself that defensive organization was probably the gaffer's main concern. i mean, why else would di matteo play chris brunt as a defensive mid-fielder?!?! ishmael miller knocked in a couple of goals, but more crucially the baggies didn't concede more than one goal per match in any of their pre-season friendlies, so in that sense, it has probably been a fair success for the head-coach and his team.

most educated pundits haven't foreseen the baggies having any trouble with their attacking game at premieship level anyway, and are generally more positive about the albion's ability to find goals - and from a wide ranging source of players - than many of their most die-hard supporters. west brom boasted 19 different scorers last year, 4 with 10 goals or more. the defence, on the other hand, has been a different matter althogether. it has been evident, however, that RDM has focused quite specifically on this long time problem and addressed it with a group of successful summer signings that will go a long way to making the baggies more solid at the back.

it's expected that a large number of teams will be playing a variation of the continental 4-5-1 attacking formation this season, and it's become pretty evident from the recent signing that west bromwich albion will be one of them. football seems to be moving into a new era as teams playing the standard 4-4-2 formation become fewer and far between. indeed, variations of the 4-5-1 were decidedly predominant among teams at this year's world cup; and the success of these tactics in recent UEFA competitions suggests it will soon be the preferred formation of most top professional clubs. the albion had already started playing this system under tony mowbray, who abandoned the idea after ishmael miller's injury. it was, however, revived by roberto di matteo after last year's defeat to nottingham forest. with a free-scoring mid-field, it was something that worked well and was still an enterprising and entertaining prospect when going forward.

there have been more popular teams at the hawthorns over the years than the club as it is now. and i've never really felt like the supporters were behind roberto di matteo the same way they were with either gary megson or tony mowbray at the heighth of their successes with the club. it is a wide held belief, for example, that there hasn't been a really solid all-around team since bob taylor and darren moore were with the club and the baggies began their long-time flirtation with the premier league. while more recently, many supporters have yet to come to terms with kevin phillips' departure for blues, which came about largely due to the chairman sticking to his guns on club policy towards terms of contracts offered to older players.





this year, however, i am expecting a mid-table finish, and i believe this to be the best albion team yet to be going into the premiership. by virtue of the process of elimination this probably makes the current squad the best west brom side since some time in the early 80s before the baggies were relegated from the old 1st division, not to return to the top-flight again for 16 years.

enough of the current team has seen life in the premier league before, and no doubt it will be much less daunting than the last campaign. expecially when everyone involved realizes the quality and potentials of this particular albion side compared to that of previous premiership campaigns.

while the management has made a number of excellent signings that will make the baggies a decidedly more defensive team, they still need another striker who can play the 4-5-1 formation. ishmael miller is still a bit of an unknown quantity at premiership level, and if simon cox can get into position he's capable of finishing with the best of them. players like gianni zuiverloon might even have an easier time with the decidedly less physical game of the premier league than that played in the championship. and there are many new faces in the squad that we have yet to see how the whole thing gels. it could all be a bit of a surprise!

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.

Big Ron Says...

i found the best overall assessment of the baggies performance last season in ron atkinson's latest statements in the press. for those of you who didn't get a chance to see or hear this story:

BBC STORY

big ron, it seems, felt much like the rest of us, that the albion were going up and would be able to consolidate fairly easily after nearly a decade now of false starts and a revolving door promotion/relegation existence. in short, it was a wasted opportunity... a wasted season... a wasted year; and that is the thing that hurts most, i think. life is too short for static activity, and mowbray knew - and despite the fact that baggies supporters are knowledgeable enough to recognize the face of progress and a have sense of the bigger picture - he only really had until november to establish the team as promotion contenders, before his time at the hawthorns would have been up.


to characterize last year as a wasted opportunity... a wasted season, even - is as close to the mark as you get. ultimately, that was the most depressing thing about last year: it looked as though we had finally taken the 2 steps forward that would allow us to be competitive and find a place in the premiership, only to come up a little short on ability to get the job done. this exposed a general naive optimism at the hawthorns, as big ron - being pre-eminently knowledgeable about football - pointed out, that there were problems evident from the first match that were never addressed. the final outcome being that it was the same 2 steps forward and then the same 2 steps back that we've been taking habitually for the better part of this last decade.

i've always been a staunch supporter of tony mowbray's; and the only real criticism of his tenure at the hawthorns, is that he wasn't able to figure out the premier league - and as a result was victimized by his own naivety and the inexperience of his players. i mean, both bednar and miller would have scored more goals if they had merely had the presence and experience of a senior striker in the squad. not even necessarily kevin phillips - just a striker or attacking mid-fielder who's been around and has developed some professional wile and guile, and knows what extra qualities it takes to score goals at the premier league level.

i think because of this, the gaffer was initially spending a lot of time on developing a playing formation based around ishmael miller - as well as the development of miller himself, possibly to the exlusion of other things that needed attention - like the lack of a decent inside right back other than jonas olsson. this was a major problem after olsonn was hurt, and those to whom the duty fell (alternately donk, meite, and eventually shelton martis) were all hot and cold in terms of performance. none really had the requisite experience, and each made critical mistakes in spite of some otherwise good efforts and decent play. mowbray also left scott carson in goal too long, and you could see it was burning out the then england number 2 goalie.


we'll never really know, but i have my suspicions that the "miller project" - which saw the albion playing a most uncharacteristic 4-5-1 setup, with jonathan greening in an advanced position as the supporting attacker - would have worked well enough to produce those extra 2 or 3 results that the baggies needed to stay up. but it was certainly a perplexing and frustrating period and the tactics were only just beginning to work when miller was injured and out for the season. there was evidence of this in the goal that miller scored in a losing cause, against newcastle; and the portsmouth match in which he was actually injured. greening had scored to put the baggies up 1-0, and throughout the 2nd half, miller was menacing the portsmouth back line in a series of fast-breaks on the end of long balls and incisive counter-attacks. it appeared only a matter of time before he would score the baggies 2nd. instead, he was injured and whatever mowbray had been working on was - without adequate back-up - lost, and effectively leaving half the season wasted, right there.



after that, the focus shifted to scrambling for forwards on loan deals, scrounging for goals that would just not appear for love, money, nor skill; and an inability to regularly keep clean sheets. it seemed that throughout the year, as if they hit the woodwork as many times as they scored (maybe more) - and while some of the skills and play at the forward position saw positive development after the acquisition of fortune, the goal-scorer that the baggies so desperately needed never appeared - or rather, appeared too little and too late, with chris brunt finding a hot scoring hand for the last 4 or 5 games only - and was the last baggie of the season to see a shot tipped off the post.

i'm sure that big ron saw what the rest of us did: that the baggies were a superior team in the middle of the park with their control passing game - which always looked so effective until they got into the final 3rd, where they largely opted to try and walk the ball into the goal like an old-fashioned south american club might have done. unfortunately, the overall effect was that of indecision and not taking chances when they appeared. likewise, i'm sure that the ex-gaffer also saw the potential weaknesses in the back four and distracted goalie; but i would love to know the full extent of what old ronnie atkinson saw in those first few games, and what observations and advice he might have to quietly whisper in the ear of the club's incoming manager - whoever that might be?

Keeping the Faith

i've been looking at the west brom posts on the BBC boards today and i'm sticking to my guns and staying positive, despite the massive let-down of not having beaten pompey on sunday; and today's news that ishmael miller is gone for the season. because, whether we like it or not, this is still the best baggies team in years. tony mowbray has managed the club to its first trophy since 1968, and taken them to wembley twice; one of which was for an FA CUP semi-final; which, they probably should have won, and gone on to beat cardiff in the final (which would have duplicated their unique double of 1931). they then went on to have their best start ever in the premiership, before they stalled in a drought, unable to score; and despite playing well, have gone on a tense, frustrating and very unlucky 2 month long winless streak.

the cliches about lack of finishing, lack of strikers, and how the baggies are playing attractive, attacking football, and dominating matches to no effect are piling up and beginning to seem tedious, just when we need to "keep the faith", so to speak, and continue to analyze what we are doing right (if only to keep our spirits up and generate some encouragement) and remember why we are baggies supporters in the first place! then maybe there's the question: why is someone 1500 miles away, and never been to the hawthorns, sitting here, half paying attention to the chelsea-cluj CHAMPIONS LEAGUE match on TV, sitting blogging intently on west bromwich albion?

i love the albion - and i depart from family traditions on this point - with ipswich town on one side; and my nan and her second husband being season ticket-holders at fratton park for many years, on the other. to me, the albion represent something that is lost in the BIG 4/CHAMPIONS LEAGUE world of today. i admire deeply that a club maintains a mandate to play attractive, attacking, passing football and doesn't deviate from its traditions whatever its fortunes. they are a club that generally operates within its means and looks for players and management that share the club philosophy and will continue to promote the ideal of an entertaining, attacking, and intelligent footballing team. they also have the best - and perhaps some of the most knowledgeable - supporters of any large team in the country. for me, the issue of being a baggies supporter has everything to do with the admiration of integrity.

to me, west bromwich albion will always be that team of the late 70s, which - like so many albion teams before and since - never quite saw its potentials fulfilled and fell short of the FA CUP final one year, and then missed out on winning the LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIP the next. but it is the memory of that team, and the traditions that the club maintains to this day that make me a baggies fan; and the only reason that i really care at all that they stay in the premiership is so that i can see them on TV each week - as i have never been able to find a hack that allows me to listen to the radio broadcasts at BBC online. last year, i only saw maybe 2 baggies league games all year, and i was lucky enough that they went on a cup run as i was able to see them play on 3 or 4 other occasions through televised cup ties - including the heartbreak of the semi-final. mostly though i had to follow the matches through the live text scores on the BBC, and was eagerly looking forward, all year long, to yet another crack at establishing the team in the premiership, and facilitate their return to weekly television football broadcasts.

i would find it sad - if i thought (and maybe i already do) that a club of the stature and tradition of west bromwich albion might never reach the top of the english football ladder again (or at least, in my lifetime), and re-establish themselves as a consistent top flight team; and that all there is to look forward to is a perpetual up and down existence, with the possibility of more lower league trophies... maybe an FA or LEAGUE CUP run... some time - i dunno'... that would still be great - but something about english football will have changed and sadly, some of its character will have gone forever, its soul consumed by international corporate hype and billionaire hubris.

tony mowbray is a great manager, and if you compare his demeanor and general attitude with that of the other managers dealing with struggling situations in the premiership, there's worlds of difference. i cannot believe that any baggies fan is calling for him to be sacked - and to be replaced by someone so unrealistic and inappropriate as sam allardyce(!?!) or articles calling for jeremy peace to come up with ten-million quid for a tried and true "super-striker". this is just not in the spirit of the albion and we are succumbing to premier league obsession and hype. last year, i remember that gareth southgate came under fire with middlesborough supporters calling for his resignation or sacking very early in the season, due to a string of poor early results. this year, he's got the team up in and around the top half and no one's got a problem. paul ince is looking worried and desperate (even terrified at times), sunderland doesn't even have a manager since keane walked out last week, and zola looks like he's going to manage west ham right down to the bottom of the table with a string of (predicted) upcoming losses and low-scoring/goalless draws - in fact, zola doesn't really look much the part of a manager at all to me. but tony mowbray looks calm, makes fair and generous assessments of his teams situation and performance, and he's sure to be encouraging with his club in spite of the results. i know he's got the team behind him and he might just end up being the reason we'll be able to drag ourselves up and out of last place, and perhaps avoid relegation - provided that that opportunity is still there.


one of the things that nobody has really mentioned anywhere that i look, is the fact that there are no out and out bad teams in the premier league this year. without someone like derby was last year, i can see a team perhaps needing as much as 40 points to avoid relegation. that's a much more competitive competition than it was last year - and we have had no luck at all this last couple of months. we're going to have to go on a couple of short winning runs, consolidated with some draws - before we can realistically start talking about survival; and it just might be too late already.

it's a cliche to say so, but the chinese word for "crisis" and "opportunity" are the same. looking at today's news that ishmael miller is out for the season is definitely what i call a crisis. i'm not sure that i would keep with the single striker formation that the albion has been playing lately, as it requires miller's pace to work (as became evident to me in the portsmouth match) and could be quite effective, especially with greening pushing into a forward position on the controlled, passing, possession attacks. i had been critical of this all year, thinking that surely 2 strikers is more in keeping with the albion style (i remember them playing 3 strikers at times last year). but the incisive passing and miller's pace had me seeing what mowbray had been working on, and i really enjoyed the play, especially in the first half. tony mowbray was right when he said that it would not be possible for a team to keep playing as high a quality of football as the baggies are and not start to win eventually, and we are so overdue for a win that i can't see us not beating sunderland this weekend - and that would be a start and create a much better feeling about last weeks performance against pompey as well.

which brings us around to the question: who are we going to do it with? i'd give keily a start in goal for one thing, just as a way of shaking things up; as carson looks unsure of anything other than high-crosses coming at him in the 6-yard box. it's pretty obvious that we'll see luke moore, at some point - and i imagine that that will be sooner than later. i don't really know what to expect from him, i haven't seen enough of him, that i can remember, to have any real impression. he looks good enough on paper, but the lack of time that mowbray has given him makes me a bit suspicious. but then again, i have a suspicion that TM was paying too much attention to ishmael miller, as it is obvious the belief that he has in him; and i suspect if TM has a weakness, it is too much attention payed to his works-in-progress. of course, i'm hoping moore comes on and makes some immediate and heroic impact - but that is just probably wishful thinking. i have to believe that they're going to go for a standard 4-4-2 with moore and bednar up front. but then again, we're down to just the 2 strikers so they may keep working on the single-striker formation with jonathan greening pushing forward into the box on attack. actually i think that a more consistently attacking greening is the key to getting the team going, and i think mowbray probably knows this too and gets on jonno's back about it - i hope that greening is listening and realizes what he's got to do. because if he starts scoring more regularly, so will morrison, brunt and koren, all of whom are capable of spectacular goals if they can get into space. if luke moore can score and set people up in space, and meite, olsson and robinson can keep carson from having to deal with too much at the back. we might start to turn it around.

The Day After Miller's Injury

well, now we have to deal with the aftermath and look at some hard facts. it was all just talk and speculation immediately following the match yesterday, but ishmael miller - who has looked better and better with each passing game, and was positively menacing in yesterday's unlucky draw with portsmouth - is going to be out for at least 6 weeks. for one thing, that forces the club to go looking for a striker this january (something they were probably going to do anyway) - and its going to give us a chance to have a look at luke moore. who knows? while it appears to be a devastating blow (and i for one believe it is), it could be one of those strange blessings in disguise.

i have absolute belief in tony mowbray, insofar as he is completely in tune with the club's philosophy and style; but, i have my suspicions that he might sometimes spend too much attention to his works in progress, which distracts him from giving a look to other things - and most certainly, miller is his biggest and most potentially promising project at the moment. don't get me wrong! i'm a huge miller fan and i would probably give him the same attention if i were in TM's place - and he was really playing his part in making the single striker formation, that i have heretofore been critical of, start to work really well. but i have to add, while it's miller's pace that makes this type of attack so potentially dangerous, it is the element of jonathan greening getting into a forward position on attack that makes it really work. it was so evident in the first half of the match with pompey, and i hope both manager and player realize it!

although yesterday's draw felt like a loss rather than a point gained - there were plenty of positives (as there have been with more than a few lost or drawn performances this year) to take from yesterday's encounter. so much so that it is becoming a maddening cliche to say so. i mean, even against the big teams like chelsea, where i sat for the first 20 minutes just thinking it a matter of time before albion scored the first goal, the team often dominates the play but doesn't score. i've heard too many varying opinions on the subject, and too many ridiculous ideas about what should be done.

there's been so much talk about strikers this year. but i think the scoring problem goes further than that. the problem is, that we're not scoring enough from anywhere. our total tally of goals scored isn't much bigger than our list of actual goal-scorers. with greening pressing forward into the box - they should be looking to make scoring opportunities for brunt, valero, koren, zuiverloon and morrison, as well. with greening now, this is the first new scorer to add to the list since olsson scrambled that winner against fulham the first weekend of october! that now makes 6 goal-scorers in all - and i think that 5 of them should be working harder to be regular contributors (and koren needs to pop one in now and then) when it comes to finishing - especially greening. he should be like old tony brown and right up there in the box on attack. perhaps with miller unavailable, one or two true heroes can step up and get things turned around.

i was also heartened to hear greening in the press today, saying that there is still good feeling around the club and they're pretty confident about avoiding relegation. that i think is another testament to tony mowbray's style of management. he'll be very sure to keep letting everyone kow how well they are playing despite the poor results - and the players probably know it too.

as i write, the tottenham/west ham match has just ended and i've changed my mind since yesterday. i think it's more likely that we will find ourselves in a four-way battle to avoid the drop with blackburn, sunderland and west ham. so we could still be in for some excitement yet.

WBA 1-1 Portsmouth

today's match with portsmouth showed all the team's strengths - as well as (at least in some small measure) its weaknesses too; and tells us pretty fairly where we stand. i feel vindicated - as a long time supporter of his - that greening played so well in the first half and got the goal. i can't understand any of the knocks that he's gotten from fans this year. personally, i think he's the only one on the squad, at the moment, who consistently looks a premiership player week in and week out. despite dropping back into a midfield position in the second half, where he seemed to disappear a little bit he was effective enough - as always doing his part in the series of quick, incisive breaks that the albion created in the latter part of game.

even though there were the wasted finishes that we have all become used to seeing this year, the real problem that i could see today was, that going into the second half with a 1-0 lead, the baggies just weren't quite sure on how to play it. i mean the peter crouch goal, it was really quite a spectacular, and unstoppable shot - especially with the unfortunate flick it took off meite, redirecting the ball enough to send it over the outstretched carson; but it was the evidently less decisive and controlling play on the part of the albion at the the outset of the second half that allowed crouch the opportunity. that is really what led to the pompey goal. the baggies just didn't seem to know how to carry on straight-off with the way they had played in the first half - and it took the first fifteen minutes or so to re-establish themsleves when what they needed to do was keep going straight at pompey with miller and greening pushing forward looking for the second goal to put game beyond reach.

there's been so much talk about strikers with the faithful lately, as miller is still learning his craft and bednar is having trouble adjusting to the tempo of the premiership game, but i felt after watching today, it is our defensive play that is weakest - and especially in goal. i think meite played well on the right, and there were no real dangerous mistakes by robinson - although he has been displaying some bizarre decision making, and his outbursts probably don't help - but i have real questions about carson. a goalie should be directing things at the back and being decisive about indicating who should be coming for and taking the ball. i think that with the line-up at the back as it was today, mowbray's got it just about right with meite, olsson and robinson covering the central positions, but there's just nobody running the defense and we came within inches of repeating last week's performance when he bobbled that cross on the line. he also doesn't seem to have much of an eye for starting any moves forward. he is the main reason why our best defense is to stay on the attack and control the ball in midfield.

that's not to say that we don't need to start scoring more goals, but a clean sheet today would have preserved a victory - even though it never looked to be a low-scoring game, that's the way it turned out - and successful teams know how to win in the end on the unluckiest of days. yesterday's man. united match was a perfect example. they just could not put the ball into the sunderland net when they might have had at least 2 or 3, and they only just managed to win in injury-time.

we'll have to see about miller - i havent heard anything yet about his injury (and i'm checking the BBC every few minutes at this point) but he's going to be sorely missed if he's out for any length of time, and i thought he had a great game today. he should never have gone after that ball, but i guess that's just reflects his youthful enthusiasm and really wanting to score.

there's no doubt pompey played pretty abysmal football in the first half, and the baggies looked better than the 1-0 scoreline, and i still i can't really understand why greening didn't keep pressing forward in the second half, as it was the inability to get the second goal before the pompey equaliser that cost them the win. i think that TM should encourage him to go forward, in the tradition of tony brown - whose style (which was thought revolutionary at the time) was always to play the midfield as an attacking position. koren and valero, i thought were adequately improved at winning balls in the midfield; and koren looks to be adapting to the speed of the premiership, and that should leave greening free to go forward more.

brunt and morrison provided some really good wing play throughout (on the left and right respectively). it was of course brunt's brilliant free-kick that led to the greening goal, and i was surprised that morrison was so effective playing down either side - as i noticed him more and more coming down the left wing when greening had moved back into midfield. late in the game, he played a tremendous left-footed cross-field ball for bednar in a buildup that ended with brunt missing a great opportunity for a second goal... really entertaining stuff - just not winning stuff, yet.

again, on terms of performance of passing football it was a heartening display and i can see yet further improvement today at getting the ball into the box; but the baggies are now beginning to look pretty firmly established as the bottom team in the league, and i can't see anything more than a fight with blackburn and sunderland as to the order of finish for the bottom three. but more on their long term fate later...