WBA 1-2 Wigan Athletic F.C.

match text commentary



"what are we doing in the same division as manchester city? that's what i'd like to know."

so said dave bowler, the club's head of publication as he rhetorically posed the all important question that, for him, expressed his personal frustration with the state of the albion and results just at the minute.

there was a generalized and ugly booing of the team, both at the introduction of two late albion substitutions; and, as the team came off the field, having suffered yet another hard-fought and unlucky home loss. a bad buzz pervaded the atmosphere at the hawthorns from before the kick-off and was palpable from as far as three-thousand miles away. i know. i could feel it!

even chris hall and dave bowler, who do the audio commentary for the club's ALBION RADIO transmission were negatively affected. the two commentators spent much of the game talking up what a poor match it was and amateurishly allowed their description of the action to drift and ramble. the situation at the hawthorns sounded nothing less than dire, and they gave the impression that we were listening to some really poor football.





"the smethwick is just about empty," bowler noted rather drearily, towards the end of transmission, "and large of sections of the east stand have already gone..."

it truly sounded abject and desperate. from the general reaction one might have assumed that the visitors were well in front and leading by two or three goals. that's how hopeless it was made to sound.

the truth of the matter is that is was a single goal's difference and the baggies did just about everything that was in their power to make it up. in the second-half of the match, and barring the wigan penalty, the baggies controlled the ball and dictated the play quite comprehensively. they laid absolute siege to the wigan goal and just kept coming. it was only the brilliance of the latics goalie, ali al-habsi, and the determined defending of gary caldwell that ultimately kept the albion attack at bay.

yet again, the albion didn't get any important calls go their way, as graham dorrans was booked for diving in the 87th minutes. truly, it was hard to tell if it really was a penalty, because while the contact was clearly much less than dorrans fall would have merited, any contact in this situation would have been a legitimate penalty call and the baggies probably deserved it.

this was one of the most upsetting days in the entire time i have been a west brom supporter. for sure, there have been some heartbreaking disappointments on the trail of being an albion fan this last ten years. but there have been some great and heroic moments of success too. some supporters seem to have forgotten that we were the league's unquestionable form team into october last year. then we hit the blackpool away fixture and went 13 matches (if i remember correctly) without a win.





i remember how some poor idiots were walking out on wolves at home last year. with the baggies one-nil down since the first half, and with 4 minutes injury time still to play, some were long gone and halfway back to dudley when carlos vela scored the injury time goal that earned a draw and kicked-off an eight game undefeated run of form that saw the baggies take points in ten out of eleven matches to end their season.

have these supporters really forgotten how exciting that was? do they remember how, on the last day, when - and 3-0 down to newcastle - we were just getting ready to pat ourselves on the back for a 14th or 15th place finish, somen tchoyi scored a stunning ten-minute hat-trick at st. james park that saw us finish 11th in the table?

and the voices of dissent have returned... singing the nostalgic praise of ex-managers while saying that roy hodgson has "lost the plot" and eternally levelling critical assertions as to jeremy peace's lack of ambition.

for my money, the doom-sayers are missing the bigger picture and don't see that every year for the past decade, the baggies have either been involved in battles for promotion to the premier league or relegation to the championship (formerly called the "second division" and, after that, "league 1") with unquestionable - albeit incremental - improvement to squad and management team every year.

but albion fans are impatient at the moment and they want the success that they perceive other clubs as achieving while we lag behind again, possibly battling relegation. would you really like to be hull city now? they came up from the championship with us for the 08-09 season and were in the premier league for two years... trouble is, they spent three years worth of top-flight wages and transfer fees in doing it. going back down again was not easy, and they had to settle for a mediocre mid-table finish in english football's second-tier last year.





would one really classify the thuggery they serve up at the britannia stadium that gets passed off as football as "success"?

you can keep it, mate!

just a few miles across town and with a team that's still probably going to finish solidly mid-table, aston villa fans are having the most miserable time this season. they are so upset with the club that they say they are actually hoping for bad results so that they might get rid of an unpopular manager. even on days when the villa win, there are endless callers on the BBC WM football phone-in saying they are villa supporters and expressing how angry they are at not being in the top six, not playing the kind of football that they want to see, and being managed by someone who is simply not welcome.

judging by the reactions from west brom supporters, there was something like a mass hallucination at the hawthorns last saturday. where many baggies fans seem to have seen an unspeakably horrible performance by their team, a number of us (including the gaffer) saw a good performance in an absorbing, competitive game of football with a disappointing result.

the premier league can do terrible things to the soul of a football club.

WBA 2-2 Arsenal F.C.

live text replay



quite incredibly, roy hodgson's west bromwich albion team came within fifteen minutes of doing the double over the arsenal, after winning at the emirates in september and holding them to a draw in this reverse fixture at the hawthorns.

there aren't too many teams in the PREMIER LEAGUE who can boast having taken 4-points from the arsenal in the course of a season. the baggies are now five games undefeated under hodgson, but despite the evident positives, the baggies are still looking for what-would-be only their second win under the new gaffer. they came close in this one, and only the gunners' superior skills and a little bit of luck saved them the point in the end.

the first noticable change that hodgson brought to the albion was to revise the playing shape from a strict 4-5-1 - which roberto di matteo started using at half-time in a match against newcastle united in last year's CHAMPIONSHIP and rarely deviated from after that - for a more defensive minded 4-4-2. this was revealed in the wolves game, with both marc-antoine fortune and peter odemwingie featured in the strikers positions. considering that the gaffer is bit more the tactician than your average manager, this was probably not altogether unexpected.



the surprise has been in the re-evaluation of certain members of the first team and how the personnel were being used. the most unexpected move, of course, has been the shrewd re-introduction of abdoulaye meite in partnering jonas olsson at centre-half. he has also been responsible for the rehabilitation of scott carson, who's playing has been much improved since his recent lay-off, and putting 30-year old irish international, steven reid, at right-back has been nothing short of a revelation. returning nicky shorey to starting left-back was long over-due, and his intelligent use of marek cech as a substitute in a defensive midfield position is obvious, but effective. the gaffer has even voiced an interest in the possibility of bringing ishmael miller back to the club. i'm even expecting simon cox to make a starting appearance soon.

hodgson knows what a player is capable of and never defers to popular or fashionable opinion about his footballers.

what hodgson has been able to do since coming to west brom is tighten up the defense, both at the back and in midfield, without detracting from the attacking flair for which the baggies are known. both youssouf mulumbu and paul scharner have scored goals recently, while players like james morrison and chris brunt are covering their defensive duties more constistently. the strike pairing of marc-antoine fortune with the high-scoring peter odemwingie always looks dangerous, especially when playing together on the break. playing in tandem with a big, strong centre-forward lends another dimension to odemwingie's game; as was clearly illustrated in the recent match with wolves.



despite the lack of wins, the baggies are definitely considered a form team at the moment and everyone knows the relatively high quality of football that they are currently playing.

while i think most albion fans were happy with the point, i was a little disappointed and thought the baggies were going to win this one. andre arshavin scored a goal of such quality that it was literally unstoppable, and the arsenal were lucky with the equalizer following a fortuitous cross which came banging back off scott carson's far post and robin van persie's slightest of touches being just enough to just edge the ball over the line past a wrong-footed abdoulaye meite.

other than the arshavin goal, however, the baggies were the better team all day and probably deserved the win. especially as they were down to 10-men and protecting a 1-0 lead for a full seven minutes of the first-half, with james morrison requiring four or five stitches in his head following a collision with an arsenal defender.

while i was absolutley elated with the last minute equalizer against wolves (especially as i was there), i was converseley and equally disappointed that the baggies didn't hang on and win this one. they had the better chances and dominated the game completely.



the baggies took the lead in the 3rd minute on a steven reid goal scored from a free-header on the first corner-kick of the game.

after throwing up a stern defensive performance in the first-half, which saw both james morrison and paul scharner recieving pretty bad head injuries (the latter having to come off at half-time), the baggies went 2-0 up on a dreadful mistake by manuel almunia. coming out of his area for a ball he should never have come for, and creating a mix-up with his defender, sebastien squillaci, the arsenal keeper left peter odemwingie an opportunity to take advantage and cleverly roll the ball into an open net.

with the baggies on an unbeaten run under roy hodgson, and with a resurgent liverpool coming to the hawthorns in two week's time, the baggies have their work cut out for them in keeping the gaffer's record intact.

Ipswich Town F.C. 1-0 WBA

live text replay



this was really quite unbelievable and makes one wonder at the effort that was made back at the beginning of the competition. why not have saved yourself the trouble and gone out at leyton orient or to manchester city? this was an incredibly bad performance by the baggies and deserves less consideration than condemnation.

perhaps it is merely a reflection of the times and illustrates just how devalued the domestic cup competitions have become in light of the financial worth of competing in the PREMIER LEAGUE. where once the prize money actually held value for the individual player of the day, and would no doubt represent the opportunity to make a substantial mortgage or car payment, money won from cup competitions has now been reduced to little more than chump change not worth getting out of bed for.

a wembley final ain't what it used to be.

except for the bright spot of teenage right-back, james hurst, making his senior debut for the albion, and the generally honest work-rate of players, steven reid and simon cox, there was nothing in this baggies side at all. even the 1-0 scoreline flattered their performance on the night, as it should have been 3 or 4-0.



in light of this, maybe boaz myhill did ok. but the welsh international still ended up wandering out to clear a ball and got ridiculously stuck in a challenge at the corner-flag.

the question i came away asking myself after this round of cup games was: when does a manager start to play his stronger sides in a cup run?

both birmingham city and west ham united played what were more-or-less full-strength sides in their respective quarter-finals. their opponents continued to rest some of their more important players with their focus still on league and european competitive concerns, and - in the case of aston villa - managing injuries.

roberto di matteo followed the latter example and made a full nine changes to the side which had beaten everton so convincingly 3 days earlier. although, as dave bowler suggested at the outset of the ALBION RADIO transmission, with 5 days until the next league fixture you might think about sending out your top squad at this point of the competition. after all, you've gotten this far and with only two games to go before wembley, you could more than reasonably start to think about trying to win the LEAGUE CUP.

like alex ferguson, whose manchester united were soundly beaten by an enterprising and attacking west ham side, i'm sure that roberto di matteo was somewhat confounded by his team's lack of performance on the night. while neither selected anything like their strongest side, both manchester united and west bromwich albion fielded teams that no doubt had enough talent to be competetive in their respective fixtures. but a quality of spirit was utterly lacking in each case and both managers probably felt that they had been badly let down.



i know that the gaffer takes cup competitions more seriously than many other managers. last year's run in the FA CUP was ample demonstration of this. so this performance has to be put on the players even though he might have thought about playing a stronger side in the first place. this type of match is always a nightmare for a manager, and becomes impossible to actually manage because there isn't just one or two obvious changes you could make in order to effect some improvement. with the all-around performance so poor, you wouldn't know who to bring off or bring on. even trying to think tactically becomes pointless.

in truth, ipswich town weren't a whole lot better, and the match statistics showed that, on all counts, this was a fairly even game. somen tchoyi, marc-antoine fortune and simon cox all got in creditable efforts on goal, but the better chances consistently fell to the tractor boys and their inability to finish looked as if west brom were just going to snatch this one on a sub-par performance.

however, grant leadbitter scored the winner from the penalty spot in the 69th minute after graham dorrans had fouled carlos edwards on the edge of the baggies' penalty area. while the foul looked to have occurred outside the box, it was no less than the town deserved on the night and the match was mercifully spared the extra time that was looking more and more imminent.



at the end of the day - and for better or worse - the importance of premiership survival precludes even a realistic chance of taking part in a EUROPA LEAGUE competition, the opportunity of which itself may not be as close again for a number of years, regardless of what happens in the league.

on the day, this was big waste of time and i feel really sorry for the albion supporters who traveled to portman road with realistic expectations of seeing their side go through to the LEAGUE CUP semi-finals on what was, by all accounts, a freezing and miserable night. the fact that they constituted roughly 11% of the crowd makes them the real heroes in this one, i think.

luckily, this was so far removed from what is really important that it in no way reflects the teams's current form or indicates anything much at all. this will be a completely different team on saturday. that is the one thing i can absolutely guarantee.

Leicester City F.C. 1-4 WBA

live text replay



as the long-time and dominant formation of 4-4-2 begins to give way to other increasingly popular setups based around the use of a single striker and extra defensive midfielders, one has to wonder: what will happen to the deep-lying, predatory striker?

west bromwich albion's simon cox is a case in point in regards to this current dilemma. despite having an absolutely frightening goals-to-games ratio and having shown over and over that he is a truly talented finisher who can score goals at any level, he can't get a start in the first team. this isn't because he is in competition with another "in-form" player, or that he's going through a rough patch of form himself. it's because he's only 5' 11", not particularly pacey and - for all intents and purposes - the position he plays doesn't actually exist within the current frame-work of the single-striker setup now favoured by the baggies' coaching and management staff.

while he has found success in the early cup competitions, it looks like his appearances in the league will be limited to that of an "impact" player, and he will only see playing time as a late substitution when the team is in desperate need of a goal.



with di matteo remaining committed to the 4-5-1 formation in this year's domestic cup competitions as well, simon cox has been pushed back and is forced to play from a central midfield position. what this really means is that his game will ultimately have to expand, as he will have further to come forward in attack and will be required to track back quickly on a loss of possession and take up a strictly defined defensive position in the central midfield. a quicker player in a similar circumstance might find himself transformed into a winger.

however you look at it, the style of attacking football pioneered by the hungarians with ferenc puskas in the 1950s, refined by the brazilians with pele during the 1960s and 70s, and - regardless of whatever other changes have occured within the science of football - has remained a standard model for how strikers would play for the next 50-60 years, seems like it may have run its course.

soon enough, less than ten years perhaps, strikerless formations (4-6-0) with wingers as the main attacking players will be as common as 4-4-2 and 4-5-1 are today.

while the baggies won this match in decisive fashion, the 4-1 scoreline was still a bit flattering to the team on the day, as well as testament to the ability of simon cox to score goals.

the baggies started poorly but took the lead on cox' first goal of the game, which was really against the run of play. it was a perfect example of pure predatory instinct, an ability to read the play and demonstrated the job of a deep lying striker. roman bednar, taking a cross in the box from giles barnes on the right wing, turned and shot, only for the ball to be scuffed away off a leicester defender. cox was positioned perfectly, took control and pushed the ball on a yard or two before chipping the leicester keeper, conrad logan.



west brom may not have deserved it, but went in 1-0 up at half-time thanks to the goal scoring insticts of simon cox.

the baggies gave up an unfortunate own goal through nicky shorey soon after the restart, and it was one of those things that you just can't do anything about or hold anyone to blame for. with a leicester attack producing a cross into the albion box from the right-wing, the baggies' left back stuck his leg out to make the block - as he well and rightly should do - but unfortunately didn't get enough of the ball and it was redirected from well out past a rooted and helpless boaz myhill.

the baggies went on to take control of this one just as surely as the foxes had let it go. in an incident that quite remarkably resembled his goal at old trafford, west brom winger, somen tchoyi once again took advantage of a ball, in this instance, bobbled by conrad logan and had only to knock home into an open net to put the baggies back in the lead.

steven reid scored with a header on 79 minutes to put the game beyond doubt, before simon cox' last minute stunner. the young albion striker, a full 25 yards from goal and frantically waving his team-mates out of the way, buried the ball in the top left corner of logan's net, producing a goal of world class quality worthy of any striker who has ever worn the blue-and-white stripes. you simply don't score goals any better than this one.



in another era, his goals-to-game ratio and obvious talent would have pretty much demanded that a player like cox would have a place in the starting XI. but roberto di matteo, like many of his contemporaries has found success with the 4-5-1 formation for the better part of a year now, and cox has been limited to cup games and was used on the wing a few times towards the end of last season.

he has been on the bench every game i can remember so far this year, suggesting that he would be of some use if the baggies were chasing a game and needed to make use of an extra attacker. so far, the need hasn't arisen except for a few minutes against chelsea on opening day.

still, the west brom sharp-shooter has said that he will bide his time and wait for a starting call-up in the first team. but then, what else is he going to do? with the game going the way it is at the moment, there is diminishing opportunities for pure, predatory strikers these days.