Time to map out a plan for Villa's future
- Says blogger Matthew Turvey
Tottenham Hotspur 1 West Brom 0
Tuesday 3rd January 2012, 9:39PM GMT.
West Bromwich Albion's Paul Scharner (left) and Tottenham Hotspur's Jermain Defoe battle for the ball
Albion nemesis Jermain Defoe hurt them again as a brave effort by Roy Hodgson’s injury-hit side came to nothing at White Hart Lane.
The England striker struck his fourth goal in three games against the Baggies to break their spirited defence on 63 minutes.
The visitors had battled to keep the scoresheet blank despite waves of Spurs attacks before Defoe netted neatly from close range.
And the Baggies heaped pressure on the home goal in the closing stages but could not find an equaliser.
Albion found themselves under the cosh early on with Gareth McAuley and Craig Dawson called upon to make key clearances as Tottenham laid siege to the visitors’ box.
And keeper Ben Foster had to make a strong punch to clear a cross by Gareth Bale.
Albion were denied a scoring chance when Benoit Assou-Ekotto cut a Peter Odemwingie cross was Graham Dorrans lurking.
But at the other end Albion were grateful to Foster for a fine save to tip Rafael van der Vaart’s shot over his crossbar.
Early in the second half the Baggies almost shocked the hosts when a Graham Dorrans corner was just too high for Craig Dawson, whose header flashed wide.
But the rookie centre-back’s misery was compounded moments later when he was turned by Defoe for the opening goal.
The Baggies failed to clear a cross by Assou-Ekotto, Bale seized on the loose ball to tee up Defoe, and the England striker span away from Dawson and found the bottom corner.
But the visitors produced a stirring effort in the closing stages, throwing men forward in their hunt for an equaliser.
And they went close when substitute Somen Tchoyi let fly with a long-range effort that was beaten away by keeper Brad Friedel.
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Losing 1-0 nil at Spurs with a patched up team is no disgrace. Good to see Dawson and Thorne have good games.
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defended quite well apart from defoe goal, but offered little up front till late on. didn`t get tonked as thought we might, need to start picking up points from next few matches though.
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Another game without a worthwhile shot on goal,we just starting to do the same things as our friends down the road,parking the bus and playing hoofball,Roy is ruining our club end of.
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And on another note was as happened to Dorrans he looks no more than a championship player.
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Just got back from WHL. Valiant effort from our reserve team. Defence was absolutely awesome and we restricted Spurs to only a handful of chances. We didn’t offer much going forward until Tchoyi came on but I take my hat off to the team. If we’d have put half as much effort into the Everton game we’d be sitting pretty right now.
Special mention must go to the ref tonight (Halsey) for the most one sided and inept display possible. Odemwingie gets hacked down when breaking. Free kick but no yellow. 2 mins later Thomas fouls a Spurs player in similar situation. Yellow card. All night he gave fouls when we clearly won the ball. The guy really is a complete and utter t.oss.er.
Onwards and upwards. Norwich is a massive game. COYB.
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Dear Mr Hodgson,
Did you know? We at west brom like attacking football? You score 1 we score 2 or 3 or 4?
Why are we now playing for draws?
It is boring, you are losing the crowd, the Smethwick end was almost silent against Everton, and it was your fault.
We want attacking football, home or away, sure a good defence is ok, but playing for a draw is not our way.
Why do you never bring on fresh legs with 20 mins to go instead of 10? Do you think a sub can make a massive difference with 10 minutes to go?
When we play 4 5 1 we look good, look at your attacking midfielders, not just at 2 strikers, with no support as they have not got any, with no first class defenders we will concede goals, so why not try and score more than them,? That’s the west brom way. As you know We loved Osvaldo Ardiles style, you score 3 we will score four, not a bore draw, do us a favour and go if all you want is a home draw to Everton who were below us in the league, we want goals!
W e want shots on target, shock yes shots on target!
West Brom is my life , I will be here after you, was here before you, and you have lost the attacking idea of us, time for you to move on or adapt.! Forget the England job, you have no chance with no shots on target in 3 games!!!!!!!!!!
Darren.
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Just saw the wonderful Sky Sport report on the game. Apparently Spurs were without Parker through injury while we were without Brunt and Long, our other injuries were obviously not important enough to mention. Then Sandro added to Spurs problems by getting injured while JT obviously didn’t merit a mention.
Don’t you just love this unbiased reporting.
Well done to the lads on a tremendous effort. Apart from our team being thrown together at the last minute, Spurs had enjoyed an extra day off before the game, strange how these fixture timings never seem to go against the big clubs isn’t it?
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again mr hodgson got it wrong tacticly why bring tchoyi on wiyh 12 mins left when we went behind after 63 mins it was only in last 12 mins with him on that we steched them thorne dawson did not look out of place but i am sorry to say that cox and dorrans for me are not quite up to prem but very good championship players move em on in window do some dealing otherwise we could be in danger of slipping back to champioship
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1 point out of tottenham, man city and everton is never a terrible thing and now we can look at our next 6 games being norwich, stoke, fulham, swansea, wolves and sunderland. I think we can get 12 points out of them fixtures putting us on 34 points with still the likes of bolton, qpr, villa and wigan in our remaining fixtures. I am very certain of our safety but would enjoy a comfortable mid table finish.
watched the game today and yet again odemwingie proved to be a let down. On our few attacks going forward he stalled most of them with bad touches or his lack of effort to try and win or at least get to the ball.
Foster brilliant every time.
Mulumbu, Long, Brunt and Olsson back fresh and fit against norwich next saturday and i can feel 3 points coming our way.
Anyway, still 7 points from the drop and 5 from stafford city. Looking forward to an optimistic second half to the season from the lads.
Boing Boing
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Apart from Everton our performances of late have been very good. You can’t expect to go to Spurs and attack them toe to toe with the entire spine of our side missing. If we continue to be hard to beat against the ‘lesser’ premier league teams you always have the chance of winning. Everybody was praising the team after the Newcastle game, not much has changed except the amount of injuries we have. I’m not saying don’t have an opinion, but at least have an opinion with a bit of perspective. And we had shots against both Everton and Spurs if they don’t go on target that isn’t the fault of the manager.
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Watched it in The King Arthur with a good crowd of Baggies. We were disappointed with the result, but our kids and new boys got loads of applause, even though they couldn’t hear us! Er, what’s that again about the crowd being too quiet? I am a Thomas fan but he would need a passport to defend within 35 yards of OUR goal. And I wouldn’t sign it.
I thought Jara looked good when he came on.
Tchoyi should have come on the minute after Spurs scored. Their defence got completely rattled when we went for them.
5TB. Absolutely spot on mate. Every word. That twit Halsey thinks if he smiles reassuringly, his rubbishy, biased decisions will be accepted.
In defence of Dorrans, Cox, Tchoyi, we cannot expect them to suddenly switch into Prem Mode when they come on for 2 minutes or even if chosen to start after not playing at all for weeks. A squad means just that. Gee ‘em a goo.
Inside man. Against Newcastle and Blackburn, we were not just ‘hard to beat’, we went at them full whack and saw the sort of game Darren Tomlinson talks about at No.6 above. The Newcastle game was a classic by today’s standards.
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10 Inside Man,
I totally agree with you that we need to get things into perspective before expressing our opinions.
Just a reality check for some people-
we’ve narrowly lost recently to Everton and Spurs,clubs that’ve been established in the top flight for many,many years,whilst we’ve only been back since last season.
Off the top of my head,I’d say the ENTIRE Albion starting XI last night cost us,in total,about 5 mil.
I would imagine just one player on the Spurs bench would be valued higher than that.
As Warren said the other day,if we want to sign a new player for money,we have to approach a bank or other financial institution,there’s no rich Sugar Daddy to ‘prop’ us up like many other clubs.
So maybe before we start moaning about the performance or skill level of individual players,we should consider that last night’s team cost us peanuts,the most expensive guy on show was probably Peter O.,at a whopping 2 mil.
If the Baggies team could outplay and beat most prem. clubs on a regular basis,then our players would be valued at around 15-20 mil. each,and the ‘big six’ would be hovering around our squad like vultures.
Basically,as things stand,we’re punching above our weight.
We’ve come a long way over the last 10 years,but we still have some way to go before seeing any game as ‘easy’ in this division.
And before attacking RH,it’s worth noting that he’s highly respected in the game,a hero in some other countries,and many people are still talking about him as potentially the next England manager.
Just a little food for thought.
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Just to say on Brunt it was a suspected broken ankle but as our website says we are sending him off for a second scan today as the first results weren’t fully conclusive.
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The Real Bully Hoo
I dont know if you were watching Sky sports pre kick off.
The “expert pundit” covering our game was the un-biased ex Spur Darren Anderton.
He was lamenting the huge loss of Scott Parker, and almost bemoaning that Spurs are probably cursed by this rash of ……er…..injury.
The guy doing the Jeff Stelling job concurred with Anderton that indeed,the luckless Spurs terrible run of an injury is a cause for major concern.
Not once did these two plebs happen to mention the absence of Reid, Olsson, Mulumbu, Brunt, Long, Morrison.
At that point i decided i no longer wanted to rely on Sky sports for an honest assessment, because it obvious, none would be forthcoming.
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10 IM.
What a very good post. Excellent mix of perspective and good sense. Totally agree that the Everton game is best never spoken of again but to expect us to go into last nights game and attack an in form Spurs side with our thrown together team of players that haven’t had much game time as some call for is well… naive to say the least.
Also the fact that we are asked to play two games in two days is typical of the fairness in this league, why wasn’t the game scheduled for tonight after our game was moved to Sunday? When does this ever happen to Man Ure?
PS
It’s a delicate balance but I remember all the complaints under TM of ‘why can’t we defend.’ Well now we are defending well but this means we are not the fluent attacking force we were under TM but we aren’t in the bottom three either. Yes of course I miss scoring loads of goals but also yes I don’t miss being everybody’s whipping boys. What’s the answer? I think I can sum it up in one word. Patience.
I hope we give the players that worked so hard last night another go against Cardiff. Thorne and Jara in midfield to give Scharner a much needed rest on the bench with Mulumbu if he’s fit.
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TRBH – It’s unbelievable how not a single report has mentioned how injury ravaged our team was (only Redknapp had the good sense to allude to it). Six of our ideal starting 11 were out yesterday: Reid, Olsson, Mulumbu, Brunt, Gera and Long while another, Morrison, only made the bench because of injury. Then Thomas went off within 20 mins. But ‘poor Spurs’ who were missing Parker.
I agree with those that say we should have gone for it earlier. We were calling for Tchoyi from the 70th minute. However, those that played acquitted themselves admirably. Dorrans was poor (have you ever seen him consistently give away simple 5 yard passes?) but he worked hard and, as it turns out, had been sick all week. Odemwingie toiled though again his touch and decision making were way off. I can’t fault everyone’s effort in difficult circumstances and for that I applaud them.
That being said, just as they should be applauded for yesterday’s effort, RH and the team must stand up and accept the criticism for the Everton game. I don’t buy the point of view that ‘Everton are an established Premiership club’ etc. I’m sorry but they were awful and they were there for the taking. Our tactics were way off and the effort put in by those that played was absolutely criminal.
Will be keeping my fingers crossed that the walking wounded recover in time for Norwich. I can tell you now that I couldn’t give two hoots what side we put out against Cardiff so long as it doesn’t contain anyone from the first team. Everyone loves a good cup run…but not at the expense of Premiership survival.
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14 plzen.
Not forgetting Gera. I know they had Lennon missing as well but we’re talking about a Spurs squad worth squillioms of pounds. Whether we’re talking about a Spurs that is still financially solvent when Our ‘Arry moves on is another question altogether.
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I posted on an earlier blog to get some in before my Imature “Paster” imposter.
Well played as we were without several regulars.Roy played it right saying we were up against an inform, strong in depth club, who wont be far off title winners. Thorne and Dawson showed their worth and were comfortable in that cauldron. Pleased to see Jara Reyes adding to a cracking game separated by a single goal. Still like what Tchoyi brings to the table. Osaze was marked by at least two defenders all game. At the end we had Spurs rocking. Can we ban Jerome from our half of the pitch?. Now we move on and see what players can better our club during January, with injuries in mind.
BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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i think its there for everyone to see we cant defend when the opposition strikers have the ball at their feet with their backs to goal in our box thats two games on the bounce this as happened comical defending going down with defending like that im afraid
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19 baggie??-
what’s comical is when a wolves fan decides to post here with the brilliant disguise of ‘baggie’.
It must’ve taken you all week to think that one up,eh clacka?
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o sorry canto just let my disguise slip notice wolf you fool im a baggie
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(19)
Dingle,
We’re not interested in wolves shortcomings. We seem to slip up when our penalty area gets too congested with our own players as they get in each others way.
BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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Sam number9 how can you say we are certain of safety get real the3 away games comin up are tough stoke wolves fulham maybe 3 from them would that be a win at wolves cause we aint gonna get nothin at other2 so you think we gonna beat norwich swansea sunderland tall order with mr hodgsons thinking remember this time last year peace was planning a replacement manager hope he’s having a look down the M5 at that scottish warrior
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16 Why should we not have a cup run at the expence of staying in the prem,what exactly do us fans get for stsying in the prem apart from higher season ticket prices and less games,i would sooner go down and get to wembley after all the best season we had for a long tome was getting to wembley and finishing bottom the hawthorns was rocking every week,all we have done on here this season is critise refs and how hard done by we are talk about how quite the fans are poor away following give me 2 games a week in the championship a good cup run hawthorns rocking rather than the greed league any day.
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12 can you tell me who is talking about Roy and the england job please apart from you.
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21 baggie??-
I give up.
I can understand a couple of your words,but what do the other dozen mean?
Are they in English?
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Yet again – another game with hardly a shot on target. Odemwhinger has got his big money contract and doesn’t seem bothered. It was only after Tchoyi came on in the 80th minute that we had a shot at goal. Why didn’t Hodgson put him on as soon as Tottenham scored? Odemwingie has been found out as a one trick pony, who relies on pure speed. Defenders have caught onto this and are sitting back a yard or so hence the lack of goals this season. If a decent (£1m+) bid comes in during the window he should be sold.
As for Hodgson, he should go now. His only tactic seems to be pack the defence and hoof it down the middle in the hope that whichever lone forward he’s picked that day will latch onto it. Hodgson’s philosophy is to avoid losing and the club is moving back to the Megson/Robson style that Mowbray turned on its head. In about 30 years as a manager Hodgson has actually won the sum total of NOTHING. Yes I know he took Fulham to the EUFA Cup Final but they only qualified via the fair play league!!! For Gods sake, why give a kid his debut and tell him not to cross the halfway line. If we sack him now at least McCleish is safely out of the way at Vile Park (well he still was at 12:10 pm on Wednesday)
For those posters who watched last night’s game through their “Super Roy”” glasses, it was only Fosters performance and Tottenham’s inability to hit the proverbial cow’s backside with a banjo that saved a double figure drubbing. If you don’t believe me, go and look at the BBC stats, I won’t quote them here because they are so embarrassing
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Last night we came away disappointed. But NOT ANGRY. We accepted the biased ref, the difference in cost of players, the pundits bemoaning Spurs having TWO players injured against mighty Albion who only had seven out and had played 2 games in 3 days. Why? Because those kids sweat blood for the team, put their bodies in the way of everything and but for just one moment of brilliance by the foe of Defoe, would have won a point. The relief of the Spurs supporters said it all. Then our lot still found the energy to go for goal.
So we came away proud of them. Makes all the difference in the world.
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24.Cantello. ‘baggie’ is playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order. We could get Andrew Preview to explain.
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John Wiles – Are you for real? I haven’t got the time to address each of your points but which game were you watching last night? In fact, let me rephrase that: did you see the game?
Foster’s performance saved us from a double figure drubbing? Tottenham, by their own admission, created nowt against a resolute Baggies reserve team. It was as far from a double figure drubbing as you can get. BBC stats are as representative of the game as their general commentary. Yes, we should have brought Tchoyi on earlier and we could have passed the ball better, but 3/4 of the team hadn’t played together all season!
Sometimes I can’t believe what I’m reading on here…
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25 Well said mate im with you all the way england job my arxe.
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Baggies fans – please just ignore the dingle idiots on here…. facts are that we faced the in form team in the league on their own ground with less than half a team fit and with just a days rest – and we lost 1-0 !!!!
I am so proud of the lads for the performance and the spirit they showed and I think Roy has worked miricles to turn us into a team capable of playing anyone in this league and having a genuine chance of gettibg points.
The injury list is looking worrying – especially the long term ones but lets hope Roy can bring in the right cover and that our “fringe” players continue to do us proud !!!
BOING BOING !!!!
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23.
How do you know that DM would be any more attack minded than RH?
Answer. You don’t. We lose a couple of games and you decide that the only answer is to change the manager. For the better? You don’t know you just want change for change sake. I don’t know if you were around in the 90′s but that’s what we did then and look where it got us.
25.
Not sure if you’re a Wulfie or one of our Ultra’s (Ultra critical.)
Tell me is the ‘one trick pony’ Odemwingie the one that played a major part in the away wins at Blackburn and Newcastle? Could the fact that like any striker he needs service and both last night and Sunday he received little.
Do you really think we should be able to lose seven first teamers and still be able to go and attack Spurs on their own patch? I think if it was the other way round Spurs would struggle and their squad is light years ahead of ours for various reasons.
As for ‘Tottenham’s inability to hit a cows backside with a banjo.’ We’re talking about those well known plodders and has beens Adebayor, Van der Vaart, Modric, Bale, Defoe do I need to go on? Please don’t give any credit to our defence or the Manager’s ability to organise which kept us in the game until the final whistle.
Whoever provided the new mantra the other week that I said I’d adopt could you tell it to me again. Something like ‘I will not reply to ridiculous posts.’
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Sam Long – agree with most of what you said, plus a message to the negative waves that seems to be drifting around on here that we have a good run of games to look forward to.
I think It was Cyril Randle who pointed out that we had taken 7 points over the Xmas period which is reward for some dogged battling performances. Although I was very annoyed by the Everton game I realised that we can’t do it every game especially after the Man City game.
Anyway onwards and upwards!
Albion til I die!
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25 Bloodied Bandage-
welcome to the magic roundabout!!
I was having a chat to my mate Mallorca Kev the other day,and he came up with a name for a bunch of guys that post on here-
the ‘Zebedee’s!’-
they bounce on here making a noise when things go wrong,then bounce away when things are going well.
Basically,last season,when Scott Carson made a mistake,they would come on here blasting him left,right and centre,but if he had a good game,they were nowhere to be seen,you could hear a pin drop on the site.
Now this season,these guys were out in force when we lost to Wigan,bouncing around noisily,but they all seemed to bounce away when we were doing well over Xmas.
I can’t remember you commenting when we recently put 5 goals past Blackburn and Newcastle?
Would you like a drop of oil to put on your springs?
(p.s.- you think RH is useless,but seem to be a fan of Mowbray-wasn’t he the guy who left after we got relegated,finishing bottom of the table?).
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25 JWBB
My intention is not to offend, but your first two paragraph`s are a little contradictory.
Basically every complaint leveled at Odemwingie in the first paragraph regarding his performance, you have rendered as a moot point, given your complaints leveled at RH in the second one.
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I think that we all need to be objective here and look at who we were playing and with what team we had available. It is a totally different scenario to the Everton game. Accepted that we didn’t offer much going forward but praise must be given to McAuley & Dawson who put in inspiring performances. The goal was scored by our nemesis and to be honest it was a proper goalscorers finish. The result was disappointing, the performance overall has to be considered an improvement on the Everton game. The negatives are clearly the lack of any sort of attack intention. I would more or less play the same side against Cardiff except resting Scharner for Jara and giving Tchoi a run instead of PO for no other reason that Tchoi needs time on the pitch. With the injuries, the Cardiff game comes at the right time as it will give Mulumbu, Olsson & Long (spine of the team) some time to recover. We shall inevitably be having a ‘does the cup matter’ discussion over the next few days. I think that Roy has a difficult decision over team selection for Saturday as we are expected to win but he may pick a ‘lesser’ side and will be dammed if we don’t!! Rather him than me.
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Given the team we had to put out the result was to be expected.
I do not agree with everything RH does but so far he has got more things right than wrong and I cant believ he is coming in for criticism.
I would like to see a couple of new faces in over the window but we will have to wait and see on that. I think we have enough to stay out of trouble but we must build sensibly. As a previous poster rightly said following the Blackburn, Newcastle and Man City games we were all smiling two losses does not make us a bad side. As we all know any team out of the top 4 or 5 can go ona 5 or 6 game losing streak as Newcastle have already shown this season. Keep behind the team we will be OK
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I know one shouldn’t bite to some of these idiotic posts but it is extremely difficult at times.
I love the one above about George Thorne “not being allowed to go over the half way line!” What….one of our sitting midfielders being told to do a job in front of the back four against an attack minded Spurs away from home? No way!
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The Dingles are having a day away from the doldrums again. They’ll soon be showing us how to deal with Tottenham, I’m sure.
BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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Good performance from the reserves.
We played without 8 of our most important players:
Ollson*
Mulumbu*
Long*
Gera*
Brunt*
Morrison*
Reid*
Thomas*
Losing by only a goal says a lot about the quality of our squad. ANY team playing without 8 of their best players will struggle. No need to panic, even with these injuries we could easily have come away with a point. Good squad, good manager … keep the faith.
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(8)
JFO,
So Roy got the tactics wrong, is this because we lost to a smashing team 1-0 with over 50% of our regulars missing?. Have a rethink mate.
BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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Cyril, superb post as usual. I can’t really comment on the performance as i havent seen any highlights, but what I would say is that given the circumstances, a narrow defeat to a class team like Spurs was hardly a disgrace.
Its clear that reinforcements are needed quickly, but there’s no need to panic. Those calling for Hodgson’s head, a little perspective please! We’re still well clear of the drop zone and with the bottom 4 or 5 hardly setting the world alight, there’s no need for us to lose any sleep, I certainly won’t be.
Boing Boing!!
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Unlucky in the end really.
Good performance under the circumstances.
Well done to all the new faces lately.
Noticed some moaning on here because we’re not scoring loads of goals.Not gonna happen in PL.
Well on the other hand we’re not conceding many either.
Which I’d like to point out, as this must show how far we have come in 12 months under RH.
From a defence that couldn’t defend to save their lives at times.
Basics of football, keep a clean sheet and you only have to score 1.
Concede 2 and you’ve gotta score 3.
That won’t happen very often.
Gone down before trying to playing like that.
Hope most the crocks are back for Norwich and hopefully get a run going again.
BAGGIESBAGGIESBAGGIES
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35 Yes Mowbray did walk away because he knew there would not be any funds availablebut at least under him we played decent football and games where never boring and though we got relegated and finished bottom another win and we would have stayed up,i know what id sooner watch.
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41 We have been without those players for 1 game most games this season we have had a full squad i was at whl last night and i admire the effort the lads put in but even if we had got a full squad we would have still gone there and parked the bus because thats how our manager plays the game.
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Oh Dear, I seem to have upset a few people which wasn’t my intention as we’re all entitled to our opinions and I didn’t mean to offend anyone.
Just a few comments in response to those posts made in response to my original one,
TB – Just because my views differ from yours don’t make them idiotic – yes the commentators and pundits for both the BBC and SKY seem to be in awe of the so called “Big” clubs but to ignore their stats (which are supplied by the press association) because you don’t like them is merely putting your head in the sand.
I don’t dislike RH as a person and his stand against Odemwingie’s comfort on the treatment table was admirable but I just don’t like the “don’t lose at any cost” tactics.
I listened to most of the match on the radio and then stayed up until 2am to watch the highlights and the Tottenham forwards had a bad day. Without belittling Foster’s superb performance, on another day they could have got a hatful.
Finally, the comment about Thorne not crossing the halfway line was not a criticism of George but of the constraints put on him by Hodgson. The comment wasn’t mine but was one printed in the Times (before you dismiss that as big club media, yes their report did seem to be written with Spurs fans in mind but did point out the extent of our injury list and was well balanced).
Cantello Rocket – I like the Zebedee concept but my feelings aren’t based on just one match but have been building for quite some time. Yes I was a big fan of TM’s style of play and believe he could have done far better with the board’s support. Your user name dates you to about the same era as me and I have many happy memories of the early 70’s of taking the 74 and meeting my Dad outside the ground (would you let a 10 year old do that now?) for evening matches, and I’ll never forget the night that my dad was hit on the head by a stray shoe which flew in from the Bruges fans causing great amusement amongst my Dad’s workmates.
Plzen Baggies – Fair point, its because I was typing from the heart that a few things seem a bit confused.
TAN – I think you have understood the comments I was making about the current style of football and the lack of a plan B when we fall behind. I appreciate that TM would have had no funds if he had stayed and I genuinely think that he only left because it was Celtic who came calling and I, for one, do not bear a grudge.
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(7)
Bully,
Regarding Sky not naming all our injuries, they probably hadn’t the time to name them all, considering the match time they usually afford us. Good job we have a two win gap (Five points) over the relegation candidates. gives us breathing space for some of them to recover.
BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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Listening to Talksport this morning there have been calls for Fergie to go because they’ve lost two games, apparently he’s lost it.
Now some of these are from mischief making City fans but some are genuine Man Ure fans (they had Southern accents) who obviously believe the c**p they’re spouting.
Feel free to draw comparisons on here.
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JWBB – Yes, opinions are of course fair game but just as you accuse others of watching through ‘Roy Tinted’ spectacles, don’t be surprised if some people find your own comments to be somewhat ridiculous.
I was at the game and while Spurs had the possession and territory they created very little (the goal, one chance in the first half, one clear chance in the second and 3-4 half chances). Harry and the far too many Spurs fans that I know in London will confirm that we stifled them. They were restricted to speculative shooting from outside the box most of the time (as we often were under Mowbray, hence the fact we came out with stats of 20+ shots per game). Press stats don’t always tell the true story and it sounds like on this occasion they are way off the mark.
We had a game plan which, under the circumstances, seemed to be the right one. What would have happened if we’d gone all guns blazing? Maybe we would have won. Who knows but I think most level headed Baggies fans that saw the game will agree that a team with 7 first teamers out put up a decent showing.
I understood fully that the comment on Thorne was a criticism of Hodgson (I couldn’t actually remember who’s comment it was). But I don’t think anyone should be surprised that our sitting midfielder sat in front of the back four away at Spurs.
Now I’ve been critical of Hodgson this season (some of our performances have been appalling) and agree that we need to be more positive, especially at home. But knee jerk reactions like ‘sell Odemwingie for anything above 1m” and “Hodgson out, the dark era has returned” smack of hysteria.
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TB,
Not from the dark era mate, from dark side.
BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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Woah there. In fighting in the ranks? Let’s keep a perspective. This isn’t the dark side!
Some of us on here have seen plently of Managers come and go at the Hawthorns and far too many seasons at the levels below. Do some of you want to go back?
OK we are not brand new in this league but second season success is still leveled at 17th and above.
We have just played some excellent football at Newcastle and against Man City and Spurs too, with an ever decreasing squad of players.
The changing squad also will have an effect on those still in it like McAuley and Foster having to adjust to new members in the back 4 is no mean task.
And let’s not kid ourselves; our love for our club may be the greatest in the land, it doesn’t make the club bigger. Hodgson has performed admirably in terms of results and improvements since he came, given the cloth he has got to work with. When DiMatteo left we looked in worse shape than we are now. Roy kept us up then and he will do this season. The only threat to this is the crippling injury list.
Yes we need to be more assertive at Home, yes we will need to score more goals, but don’t be so niave as to imagine you see something Roy doesn’t.
The one thing we can do is to keep behind the lads, especially when they need a lift. It’s not just Albion till we die, its through the thick and thin of it on the journey too.
Keep the Faith!
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Ive read comments from the likes of jackth and trbully but let me put the record straight here i am not calling for hodgsons head but peace must have contingency plans cause he aint stayin long term DM did apply for job when di matteo went also regarding spurs they were beatable the other night if hodgson HAD MADE HIS CHANGE EARLIER and by the way bully ive been around since62
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53 John.
If you’ve been going that long then like me you will remember we did very well under Jimmy Hagan for a number of years but got rid of him and a procession of managers followed that saw us relegated for the first time in many years.
During the 80′s we had managers leave, we didn’t sack them. This again coincided with a successful time. In the 90′s we changed managers as often as the chairman changed his underpants. Then followed the continuity Gary Megson brought.
I’m not saying RH is perfect or never makes a mistake, I’ve questioned some of his decisions on here myself. But what I don’t agree with is this lose a couple of games, sack the manager philosophy.
If you have the wrong man in charge ie Bryan Robson then certainly you need a change but it’s been proved before the managerial merry go round doesn’t work. If Roy decides to retire then yes we have to look around and maybe DM is a good choice but he’s still very new to management as was RDM. Bring in DM and if we end up in the bottom 3 what do you do, sack him and wheel in the next horse on the merry go round?
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