Reading 1 Albion 1
Saturday 27th March 2010, 5:28PM GMT.
Gabriel Tamas’s first Albion goal with three minutes left rescued a thrilling point at Reading.
The Baggies moved nine points clear of third-placed Nottingham Forest as the Romanian lashed home a rebound, after Jonas Olsson had headed against the crossbar.
Albion had fallen behind to Gylfi Sigurdsson’s sixth-minute opener and looked to be heading for defeat, despite an open game in which both teams had chances.
A point was not enough to take Albion above leaders Newcastle, but it extended their advantage over Forest in third.
The first 25 minutes were contested at a break-neck speed, with both teams appearing likely to score each time they ventured into their opponents half.
Reading’s Shane Long and Albion’s Graham Dorrans had both run clear but been denied by the time the hosts took the lead with just six minutes on the clock.
They broke from an Albion corner through Jobi McAnuff and quickly outnumbered their visitors, but McAnuff’s first effort was blocked well by advancing goalkeeper Scott Carson.
Jimmy Kebe’s follow-up was cleared off the line by Gabriel Tamas, but Sigurdsson was on hand to tap home the third effort.
Just four minutes later a Tamas header from a Graham Dorrans corner was turned over athletically by Royals goalkeeper Adam Federici, before Steven Reid for Albion and Ryan Bertrand for the hosts fired wide at either end.
But the Baggies’ defending was chaotic at times and, when Brian Howard burst clear, Carson had to make another good save before Joe Mattock blocked on the line from Sigurdsson’s follow-up.
Carson was back in the action four minutes into the second-half after Long and Kebe exposed a disorganised Albion backline, with the goalkeeper having to charge out bravely at Kebe’s feet.
Albion had two penalty appeals turned down within a minute around the hour mark, first when Andy Griffin appeared to handle halting a run by Dorrans and then when Ben Watson went down under a challenge from Zurab Khizanishvili.
Substitute Simon Church should have killed off the Baggies after racing onto a lofted Brian Howard pass but planted his shot wide of Carson’s goal.
But Tamas struck on 86 minutes, blasting into the roof of the net after Olsson had headed Dorrans’ corner against the woodwork.
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A most impressive sight at The Hawthorns today with 40 coach loads of supporters well organised for the journey. Sir Terence wandered around his charges accompanied by his pretty daughters, whilst Bomber and Hilltop put in an appearance to pay their respects to their leader. All very civilised until the match started. The tribal chants could not deflect from a ragged-ar**d performance from our defence on occasion and our shooting would never have won Agincourt. It needs saying that Reading are quite prepared to shove, tug, kick and foul their way to domination and a stronger legal hand was needed to apply the Rules of Engagement. Towards the end we saw hand-to-ball on two occasions followed by a last man foul on our man which warranted a red card. So justice was finally done when once more we equalised at the very end. A hard earned point taken from a spiteful opponent and a game that will not live in my memory for long.
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good character for a point but I am dreading the premier league with our defence. We get cut wide open by any pace. JP get ready to spend some money.
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reading are an absalute disgrace to football!!
we were 1 on 1 twice and both times they hacked us down deliberatly.
never been so angry.
well played anyway lads, bit dodgy at the back with kebe gettin us on the break everytime but a well earned point which should have been more
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Don’t know what happened to my previos post!.
Tamas,Another new goal scorer(twenty now)is that some kind of record?.Scot Carson,man of the match
display,maybe England should take another look.
Better game by Mattock.Miller and Barnes changed the game for the better when they came on.How
Middlesborough cloggers finnished with eleven players I’ll never know.Our central defenders
need to play closer together or maybe ask Gary
Megson in as defensive coach he’d sort it out.A
block buster point towards our goal.
~~~~BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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(post 1)
Cyril,
Nice post about the convoy!.
~~~~BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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JtH. Whoever organised that convoy is deserving of promotion. Must be the offspring of the bloke in charge of the DDay landings. The Police played a good part too. We even had our own Midlands Bobbies down in Reading and very friendly were the ones I spoke to. Not at all like the over officious one on the motor cycle we encountered at a home match two games ago, (David Sullivan look-a-like). The whole arrangement was a resounding success by our Club organisers. Spoke to one or two Reading men after the game. They were pleased to be upwardly mobile again and were prepared to forgive the over aggressive bending of the rules. I don’t recall Meggo resorting to dirty tactics to turn our team round though. Hard, but fair, just like Dinsdale.
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we are going up no danger,but what we need to do now is be positive, (sell the dead wood)moore,mattock,meite,barnett,and the loon,collect the cash for velero and greening,bring in two or three body’s with a bit of quality and pace at the back,a ball winner in midfield,and a quality striker,then we just may stay up.we dont have to be stupid with money,jara did’nt cost much did he?
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(post 7)
Solihull,
Couldn’t put it better myself.
(post 6)
Cyril,
Hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression when
refering to G Megson. As you are aware he was brilliant at defensive organization and cover play. Three more wins and the baloons,streamers can go up and champers can go down.
~~~~BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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superb battling point
and how good was scott carson.
hes had plenty of stick this season but credit were its due he was outstanding
a huge point and hopefully forest fail to win at st james park to push us even closer to promotion
boing boing !
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its a valuable point, although we didnt get the penalties, but hey ho, come on u baggies
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jth calm down m8, how many times, weve got to balance the books, so dont expect too much next season m8, every monday is miserable , we should of scored but didnt, premiership is a fab place to be , but balancing the books means we will struggle, running a buisness take a risk or two, but we wont. elation one season and doom and gloom by christmas the next, youve got to love or hate football, but to me the baggies are everything , so come on albion, cant wait for miserable mondays
BOING BOING
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Promotion should be a sure thing, but, we have to get rid of Luke Moore and re-coup the money for Valero, Greening, and I’m sure there is another player I’m missing. Defence, is our biggest weakness, and Meite, and Zuiverloon will never make it in the Premiership. If we can get most of the money that was wasted on Valero back, then we should use it on a top class defender. We seem to have a surplass of good midfield players, so we only really need to add quality at the back, keep our strikers,(minus Moore) and start using Cox on a regular basis.
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COMING GOOD AT THE RIGHT TIME,SHOWING THE KINDA BATTLEING SKILS NEEDED FOR THE PREM,..STRANGE BUT I HAVE MORE FAITH IN THE BAGGIES THIS TIME IN THE PREM TO HAVE A HALF DECENT SEASON,.WHO CARES IF WE ARE PICKING UP PLAYERS FOR NOWT,WE HAVE OFFERD THEM A GOLDEN CHANCE AND I THINK IT WILL PAY OFF BIG TIME NEXT SEASON,THE PLAYERS WE HAVE HAD DO HAVE PREM KNOW HOW BARNES,WATSON,REID,DAVENPORT AND WITH CLUBS NEEDEING TO OFF LOAD WE CAN PICK A SIDE TO GIVE US A GOOD FRIM FOOT HOLD IN THE PREM I MEAN IF WE CAN GET A TEAM OF PLAYERS LIKE TOMAZ JARRA DONT COST THE EARTH AND THEN PICK UP ONES LIKE BARNES N DAVENPORT OK ITS A RISK BUT GOD IF IT COMES OFF AND THERE IS EVIDENCE IT WILL JUST THINK OF WHAT CAN BE DONE ?OK IM NOT SAYING WE GONNA EMULATE BIG CLUBS BUT WITH THE CLUBS IN THE LOWER REACHES LIKE BLUES STOKE WOLVES BOLTON BLACKBURN FULHAM VILLA EVEN WE GOT QUALITY PLAYERS AND WITH SOME ADDITIONS WE SHOULD AND EXPECT TO BE AS GOOD IF NOT BETTER THAN THE TEAMS I HAVE SAID,. AND I DONT THINK DM WILL DO A TM AND BLOW THIS CHANCE THIS TIME ,LETS GET OVER THE FINISHLINE THEN REBUILD STARTS JP WANTS DM TO SELL FOR HE CAN BUY I AGREE SOME TM HASBEENS STILL HERE THAT SHOULD BE GONE,.CMON YOU NEWCASTLE LETS WIPE LITTLE SHIT DAVIS SMILE OFF HIS FACE AND CMON ALBION LETS SHOW THE PREM THIS TIME WE CAN PLAY AND WIN
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Sid, that’s masochism! You can get the same effect much cheaper by sitting on a row of drawing pins every Monday. That wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Carson knockers come to think of it. Nice to see Jonas wave to the crowd at the start and finish. Our lot looked weary before the game so to fight back second half must mean they sucked the tank dry. If we had had that Sikh ref in charge, those fouls, penalties, etc., would have been dealt with properly and some of very questionable Reading tactics would have been stamped on. There was one instance when the small, stocky right back yanked over, I think Thomas, by his shirt collar. OK, we got a foul given but that geezer should have got his first yellow. He didn’t! We shan’t have to play them next year thank Heaven, but we can ‘look forward’ to a nice, even, friendly game at Stamford Bridge it would seem. Don’t forget to order some drawing pins Sid, me old Cocka!
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(post 11)
Sid,
Balancing the books doesn’t mean we haven’t any
money to spend.Another goalkeeper to challenge
Scot,two defenders,one striker, in.Other posters
have stated who needs to go.plus promotion money.
You see Sid, Jeremy Peace uses money wisely,you know it makes sense to only spend what we can afford.Portsmouth and Leeds took a risk or two,
when they didn’t come off they had to take another risk or two and so on untill they’ve ended up where they are.As I said before three more wins……..
~~~~BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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Well what a great day that was,well earned point against a bunch of hatchet men,Carson was outstanding,great to see a few of the lads and girls,and the ever popular gentleman Cyril,nice geordie win tonite and we almost there,aye boing boing
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Cyril can you send me your aol addy to baggiz68@aol.com plz,tryed sending pics but wont send,thanks.
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A most excellent game, albeit rather frantic at times. A big thanks to Dave Holloway for so expertly organising the transport and to come away with a point against the leagues form team was an OK result. On the way home we were listening to BBC Radio Berkshire and the two muppet presenters were praising Reading for being so clinical when it came to cynical fouling….would they have said that if red cards had been shown? What a disgrace that Watson got the same punishment for complaing to D’Urso, that the Reading player got for a blant hack at Dorrans who was through on goal. I notice there has not been much comment about Jerome Thomas blatant foul throw which then resulted in the corner from which we scored…. I thank you….
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wba 78 have i missed something who is davenport sorry but i was away from wendsday to sat
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Thanks Sir Terence and E&S for the email address. And a very big thank you to Dave Holloway for the organisation on Saturday via Tina Biscuit. I wasn’t over impressed with the game, mainly because of the tactics used to stop us playing and Andy D’Urso’s erratic refereeing. Two in form teams should have rated a classic, but at the end I could see why Reading have turned their season around. A brilliant left winger, rough-house stuff in the middle and a centre forward with teeth and claws like a wildcat. Add that nasty little sod at right back, sorry no, not my cup of tea at all.
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I think its unfair to say Reading are a disgrace for hacking down our players when they are through on goal, I would expect our players to due exactly the same in the circumstances. I think the performance of the referee was more of a disgrace!
I am still in dis-belief we managed to get anything from the game as it was a truly shocking performance, but I am not complaining one bit, and to think we could have even gone on to win it at the death!
I notice when Carson makes a mistake its all anyone can talk about for a week, slagging him off, calling for him to be dropped, then when he puts in a man of the match performance there is barely a comment about it. We would have lost 3 or 4-0 if it wasn’t for Carson on Saturday, so well done Scott, keep it up and silence those critics :)
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18 Tina biscuit,are you a cracker,aye boing boing
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11 Sid.
I see we’re back on the mythical ‘take a risk or two’ financially next season. I notice you don’t go on to explain what these risks are or how they should be financed.
Do you mean spending money we don’t have? If so how much should we risk 5, 10, 20, 50 million?
Would you be happy to do your bit and pay perhaps £800 or £1,000 pounds for next years season ticket? Even if you would many people wouldn’t and many couldn’t.
It’s just too easy to snipe at JP without being specific on any details. At the risk of becoming a bore on this, I’ve asked numerous times before for someone to answer these questions but so far I’m still waiting for any sort of reply.
On the other hand 13 WBA 78, a good positive as well as realistic post.
Once again the BBC did us proud on the Football League Show.
As their favourites Newcastle weren’t playing the main match was from League 1. Although second and top scorers, we didn’t even rate being the first CCC game.
When our game was eventually shown we were allowed the luxury of exactly one minutes coverage.
I don’t think we have a divine right to be on first because of our position but Newcastle always are so what’s wrong with us?
Can’t wait for our thirty second slots on MOTD when we play Bolton or Villa next season.
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(post 21)
Ant Lowe,
I’ve been through this string and have counted five times Scot has been mentioned for his great display.Some are multi-posters so he isn’t going to be mentioned in every one off their posts. It
appears Ant you agree with clogging and I wouldn’t
like ALBION to clog, ALBION fans are brought up to
appreciate the finer arts. So I’m questioning your BAGGIES allegiance?. After a gruelling couple of months football and probably running on
empty, you begrudge my team of being worthy of some return. I’ve reached my dicision, dingle.
~~~~BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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If Albion win promotion we need to get
Borja Valero back from Mallorca as we lack
anyone in the midfeild who can spray some
passes to the wingers and strikers.
This 11 could easily hold its own in the Prem:
CARSON,JARA,TAMAS,OLSSON,CECH,
MORRISON,MULUMBU,VALERO,BRUNT,DORRANS,BEDNAR.
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(post 18)
Tina,
Clogging will always override a foul throw-in,in a discussion. But I take your point,it shows
the incompetence of some match officials that they can’t see a foul when a player is waving the
ball in their face. what chance have they got of seeing crude fouling, One team playing according
to football rules the other allowed to play with rugby type rules. No wonder there is a massive call for goal line technology instigated by Gary
Megson when we had two goals disalowed in one season.
~~~~BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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