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.

WBA 3-1 Sheffield United

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the only thing you wish after a match like this is that the baggies might register one or two more clean-sheets on the year. other than that it was a typical baggies win where the skillful, control and pass approach to football beat another uninspired exercise in negative footballing that the blades have become known for in recent years and are all too quick to adopt when things aren't working for them.

the real point of note in this match was the fact that roman bednar is definitely back at his best and proved it on the day by scoring on the half-hour to bring the score to 2-0, after graham dorrans had successfully converted a penalty in the 18th minute.

the blades never looked to be in this one and di matteo's 4-5-1 attacking formation that he has been using the last four games is chugging along and doing its job just fine. my only point of concern being that ishmael miller didn't seem as fit as he had appeared in the previous two or three outings, where similarly, he was brought on towards the end of the match in a measured move to get him back into playing nick.



the other thing that concerns me is the choice to play both koren and dorrans in orthodox attacking midfield roles. i'd like to see koren move into an more traditional striker's position in support of bednar as the target man. i can't help think that it would not only help with the game going forward, but it would be clearer as to who should be working back and mopping up with mulumbu and who should be focused on counter-attack opportunity. i still can't see why we haven't seen a 4-4-2 featuring bednar and cox. it's the only combination of strikers that the gaffer hasn't tried this year and it seems so painfully obvious.

this is the most important 3-points that the baggies have earned in weeks and puts the club within touching distance of reclaiming second place from nottingham forest in the table; and if the baggies can beat blackpool in the re-scheduled match to be played this coming wednesday that's exactly what they'll do.

Ipswich Town 1-1 WBA

in his analysis of late-20th century communications media, marshall mcluhan had assessed that radio was emphatically a "hot" medium. on the other hand, he rated TV as "cool". he contended that there was no better way to "hot things up" and get a war going than using radio propaganda targeted at specific and localized geographical areas. following the albion through streaming digital audio transmissions (internet radio) online tends to bear out the professor's hypothesis for me, week in and week out. indeed, the ALBION RADIO commentary supplied through the PLAYER service on the club website has had me hopping up and down, furious with referees, cursing players, managers, chairmen, owners and any other football functionaries you care to think of more than a few times this year.

i can't remember which match it was, but an offside call that pulled back what would have seen a winning goal for the baggies had me uncharacteristically steaming at the ref and pronouncing how much i'd really like to see a replay of that on TV in order to examine the extent of the injustice perpetrated by such irresponsible officiating. the commentary had me convinced that west brom had been blindly and blatantly robbed in the most obvious and controversial of fashions.

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this, however, turned out to be a combination of perspective (on the part of the commentators) and the media being decidedly "hot". when i actually saw the play in question on the football league highlights show, there was no real controversy - as the player was indeed offside and the call by the referee correct - and routinely so - with little question as to the fact.

audio commentary has its own particular qualities to incite and inflame the individual.

as "radio" fare goes, the baggies' league clash with ipswich town at portman road was very entertaining, accurately described and everything about this match eventually "hotted-up" through circumstance and the medium.

on an evening that saw all of the albion's "contemporaries" in the challenge for automatic promotion gain maximum points and - in several cases - substantially improve their goals against averages, the albion once again ran afoul of a stingy defense from the lower part of the league.

the tractor boys, while not playing the most beautiful football in the world, are very organized at the back and have become expert at avoiding defeat by creating a lot of low scoring draws. the baggies have not done well under these kind of circumstances this year, and - as against QPR at home - the team had to dig deep and exert their style of skillful, attacking football until the death in order to manage a draw.



once again, di matteo started the same eleven as the last two matches and kept the 4-5-1 formation seeing roman bednar as the lone striker with graham dorrans and robert koren in the midfield as his attack force. gabriel tamas, the club's new romanian centre-half showed that he possesses an extra degree of skill that we couldn't have been aware of from his performance against nottingham forest and has proved a much needed acquisition by the baggies.

the controversy of this one began with the penalty awarded against jonas olsson, which was quite inexplicable. the big swedish defender was - by all accounts - harshly penalized for routine jostling and shoving for position on an ipswich corner kick. even the mainstream press reported it as a poor decision on the part of the referee.

there was nothing particularly distinguished about this match. the baggies just couldn't break down yet another well organized and pedestrian defense. it was clear why the town have been involved in a lot of low-score or no-score draws of late and the baggies were eventually forced to gamble on a 2-5-3 formation that was absolutely hilarious to listen to.

"i think olsson's wondering who's playing left back and he's being told, 'you are mate!'" one of the commentator's noted.

truly, with bednar, miller and simon cox all playing up front supported by brunt and thomas on the wings, the albion had indeed gone into something resembling a 2-5-3 formation like a team from the 1940s or 50s. even scott carson came up on one of the last corner kicks as the baggies fought to the end for a draw in this one.

the overall effect of the commentary - and with the gross injustice of the penalty decision as its focus - got this match sufficiently "hotted up" that when chris brunt dramatically equalized in stoppage time, it all felt as good as a win and the point taken vital to the baggies' promotion campaign.

Newcastle United - League and Cup

WBA 4-2 Newcastle Utd.

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one fact was clear about this match straight off the bat: the albion were making a run for the cup and newcastle (for whatever reason?!?!) were not. as far as the albion is concerned, this is always a good move and a cup run enhances the club's success in league play as well.

the baggies have always been a cup team, and in any category you look they are still one of the top-ten clubs in this particular competition: 20 FA CUP semi-finals, 10 finals appearances, and five cups won. this is still a better record overall than chelsea, for example. with this being the 90th anniversary of our only ever league championship, it's also worth remembering that the albion's fame has always been based on cup success and respectable league standings.

the FA CUP win of 1954 was followed by three straight top-five finishes in the 1st division. this is the spirit of west bromwich albion.



while the world's oldest football competition has lost much of its glamour and popularity due to the season-ticket culture that dominates match attendance amongst the country's bigger clubs, and fully televised premiership and UEFA schedules have taken interest and precedence from the cup, it is still the competition for which west bromwich albion is most famous and i think that ignoring the cup is a serious mistake for any baggies team.

i have to admire roberto di matteo for starting a full-strength line-up. it is an absolute credit to the gaffer's understanding of english football, and - more importantly - the spirit and history of west bromwich albion. he knows that for the baggies, a cup run is fine and fair accompaniment to a successful showing in the league.

despite not scoring as he had in the last two matches this was actually roman bednar's best performance on the year, and he knew it. ishmael miller continued his return to football with another late inclusion as a substitute. i imagine that this will go on for the next month or so until the big striker is fit enough to start and possibly play through an entire 90 minutes.

as to the team selection - and the seemingly unusual 4-5-1 attacking formation - it is very similar to how tony mowbray was setting up during what i always refer to as the "ishmael miller project" of last year. while it looked like a 4-5-1, the ex-gaffer was really playing jonathan greening in an advanced attacking position alongside miller. di matteo's setup is a little more conventional as he has both graham dorrans and robert koren in position to go forward as attacking midfielders. my thought on this is that it might see more success with koren pushed forward into an orthodox striker's position, playing in support of either bednar or miller as the target-man.

with the next round an away draw to reading, the albion are already looking a good bet for the quarter-finals and with so many of the big clubs gone from the competition, we might be able to start dreaming just a little about the possibility of becoming the first championship side to win a wembley cup final.

Newcastle Utd. 2-2 WBA

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well, this was roman bednar's - and perhaps the team's - best game of the season so far. there is no doubt that with 2 goals in as many games, the big czech striker is looking like he's finally rediscovering his past form.

after having been part of an all-round terrible performance against nottingham forest, gabriel tamas showed that he is a tough, resolute and sometimes dirty defender who has a definite contribution to make in a side that is generally short on tough, and sometimes dirty players. as well, ishmael miller's return looks more of an immediate threat than one might have expected, with the big striker hitting the post and unlucky not to score what would have been the winning goal in the last few minutes against newcastle.



as good a game as this was - and a draw being the fairest of all outcomes - it didn't do much for the baggies in terms of the table. the 2-points that they took from newcastle seem far more important than the single-point registered, and the albion are going to need a five or six game run of wins at some point if they really want to secure automatic promotion. however, this is the championship and judging by historical precedent, nottingham forest may just have peaked too early in the season and will, in all likelihood, end this term in playoff position.

i still have confidence - and even if it's just on goal difference - that the baggies will just edge it as far as automatic promotion places go.

WBA 1-3 Nottingham Forest

albion had everything to lose and forest everything to gain. the baggies were at a distinct psychological disadvantage and a complete loss as to how to deal with the challenge. their tentative, nervous and completely disjointed performance even set a new low for standard of play on the season. this was a worse display than either of the matches against barnsley or cardiff, both of which were absolutely terrible.

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i got to see this one on TV and it was as grand a disappointment as i have had to endure from the baggies all season. i hope i get something distinctly better than this when i make my next set of trips to the hawthorns - starting with the match against blackpool on the 13th of march.

there were even some unusually poor choices made on the part of the gaffer as to the starting line-up. di matteo should never have started gabriel tamas. not that the romanian defender had a particularly bad game; on the contrary, he was much better than jara, who had a terrible game. it's just that only being at the club for two days he's not settled at all and i think that the more familiar presence of shelton martis might have lent a little more collective steel to the back four.

there was absolutely nothing to recommend in this match except for striker roman bednar breaking his long standing scoring drought, the return of ishmael miller - and to a lesser extent - that of robert koren as well.



in fact, with bednar coming on at half-time and miller coming on in the 77th minute, one realizes how well roberto di matteo has done with the squad that he inherited from tony mowbray - injuries and all. the forward play between miller and bednar was a full cut above that which moore and cox had had to offer, that i couldn't help but think that what the new gaffer has achieved so far is truly exceptional. i mean, if the baggies can hold on to second-place for as much of the season as they have with the current squad, how will they do with the undoubtedly stronger line-up that they'll be finishing the season with?

ishmael miller's return was a reminder of something i'd almost forgotten. sadly, we'll never see neil clement play again, but james morrison may also eventually return.

i'm not usually a superstitious person, but i think that it is a mistake for the baggies to sell shirt sponsorships. on the most irrational level, i think that the gods of football favour the sponsor-less jersey. as evidence, the baggies have a decidedly poorer record when sporting sponsor logos on their uniform than not.

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.