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Blog: It's changing for the better at West Brom

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Three games, three clean sheets and an exhibition in resilience – it's like Uncle Roy's been back to visit West Brom.

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Monday's goalless encounter at Goodison Park was certainly no classic,

writes blogger Warren Stephens.

Indeed Joel Robles in the Everton goal could have sat himself down and enjoyed a couple of cigars through the 90 minutes. Yet, for all Everton's territorial pressure, Ben Foster hasn't had to make a meaningful save either.

It was a performance that, defensively, bore many of the hallmarks of an Albion away display under Roy Hodgson or Sir Gary Megson – probably our two most successful managers in recent times.

Clearly some of Tony Pulis's training ground doctrines around defensive shape were to the detriment of our attacking play, or what little we saw of it, but a solid foundation certainly gives us something to build on.

Claudio Yacob gave us a further glimpse of the past with a performance reminiscent of what we came to expect from him after his arrival in 2012 – he was exceptional, as were the back four he so valiantly protected.

Nationally, praise was lavished on Saido Berahino's performance in a wide position that carried the responsibility of handling Seamus Coleman for much of the evening.

I read one report that described how he'd sacrificed himself for the team, performing diligently in the process.

However, to me, his contribution when the opposition have the ball is fairly minimal.

He can't tackle particularly well, often appears lethargic and there were one or two occasions on Monday evening when Coleman escaped his clutches with relative ease.

When Berahino did receive the ball it was, understandably, in relatively unthreatening positions.

If I was being critical, would say that he can sometimes guilty of slowing play down or taking the wrong options in possession.

Now, before you all bite my head off for being unduly negative, I make these observations purely because I think most of us would agree that Berahino is a striker, a goal-scorer.

He comes alive in the opponents' penalty area and his finishing is deadly. When he's not played as a central striker, I think you lose the majority of Berahino's positive attributes.

Historically, it would seem that Pulis likes a 'target man' in his teams.

Victor Anichebe's performance on Monday might lay some testament to the notion that our team functions better when we have a player with his attributes leading the line.

Jewel in the crown - where does Saido Berahino fit into the West Brom team going forward?

All the noise this week from B71, including an unprompted statement from chairman Jeremy Peace, is that Berahino is staying and will receive a significant contract improvement in the process.

If he does remain at the Hawthorns, great, I sincerely hope that Pulis improves him as a player and he scores lots of goals for seasons to come.

However, I do wonder where Pulis sees a role for Berahino in his team going forward. I don't think he will embrace a regular role like the one he had to fill against Everton.

Equally, I don't expect Tony Pulis will be sending us out to play 4-4-2 every week, particularly away from home, so it'll be interesting how the story unfolds.

Looking forward, we face an FA Cup fourth Round trip to St Andrews on Saturday. Older supporters will recall that we beat Birmingham City in the semi-final on the way to our last FA Cup win in 1968.

Even older supporters, or those so old that they might now have forgotten, will remember us beating Birmingham City in the 1931 final. Drawing them is certainly not a bad omen.

One of Tony Pulis's endearing attributes seems to be that he embraces English football history.

In one of his first interviews at Albion, he made reference to us being a founder member of the Football League.

I'm sure it won't be lost on him that the FA Cup has provided the bulk of Albion's success as a club in major competitions.

2008 aside, there's been notable lack of recent success in the FA Cup for Albion.

However, to this day, only 6 teams have contested more finals and 5 teams have contested more semi-finals than we have. I think most supporters would dearly love a run in this competition.

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Hopefully, with Pulis at the helm, we won't see a repeat of some cup disappointments in recent seasons.

We have seen under-strength Albion sides miss opportunities against lower-ranked opposition – Ipswich and Bournemouth in the League Cup spring to mind.

We're not scoring a lot of goals and, as such, travelling to an in-form Birmingham City isn't likely to be a walk in the park.

However, it's certainly an opportunity and with 5,500 Baggies making the short trip, it promises to be a great atmosphere. Come on you Baggies!