Express & Star

Blog: Nearly Albion's mission accomplished

Published

West Brom boss Tony Pulis walked through the door at the Hawthorns with a simple brief - keep the club in the Premier League.

more

And last weekend's nervy 2-0 victory at Selhurst Park might just have seen us achieve that objective, writes blogger Warren Stephens.

That's with five games to spare as Albion now sit on 36 points, equal to last year's final haul, and eight clear of the drop zone.

The league's bottom two clubs, Queens Park Rangers and Burnley, have five games to overturn a 10-point deficit to overtake Albion.

Neither looks likely to at least win three and draw one from five, particularly the former who still have to travel to Manchester City and Liverpool.

Assuming those two remain beneath, we'd have to be leapfrogged by Leicester, Hull, Sunderland, Aston Villa and Newcastle to stand any chance of being relegated.

A pessimistic Baggie might point to our general form prior to Saturday's win and our remaining fixtures, against four of the current Premier League top five.

However, even if Albion lose five games in succession – something we haven't done since 2010/11 – it would take a catastrophic turn of events for the season to end in relegation.

With that in mind, thoughts tentatively wander towards an Albion future under Tony Pulis. Our record since hiss arrival has actually been remarkably good.

In the Premier League, it reads won five, drawn four and lost 5 – 19 points from 14 games.

That record's made more exceptional when you consider the glaring deficiencies within the squad that he inherited and the failure to address that in January.

However, as any supporter who attends games regularly will testify, it's not always been pretty. The Crystal Palace game was a prime example of that.

They hit the woodwork, had a goal disallowed, goalkeeper Boaz Myhill has made saves.

Yaya Sanoga of Crystal Palace scores a goal but it is ruled out by referee Jon Moss.

And every Albion supporter in the ground will have been wincing when Wilfried Zaha had makeshift left-back Chris Brunt one-on-one in the first half.

However, in much the same way as we did at Everton, Sunderland and at home to Southampton, we defended resolutely and a few fine margins fell our way.

There is of course an art to nailing those fine margins but also an element of luck upon which Albion simply cannot hang our Premier League aspirations for another season.

In the last four transfer windows we've seen significantly more failures than successes arrive at B71 – that has to change.

A target man, pace, width and full-backs must surely feature prominently on Pulis's shopping list for the summer.

It's a list from which Jeremy Peace will have to tick off more items than Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish did last summer, if he wants to keep his man.

Victor Anichebe's performance on Saturday illustrated Albion's reliance on a target man.

It comes in a Pulis team that likes to sit deep and compact, but his fitness remains a concern.

He's also arguably not quick or mobile enough to press teams from the front in a way that Pulis might like.

Callum McManaman was presumably brought in for his ability to carry the ball and put teams on the back foot, but he won't be able to do that alone.

Craig Dawson and Chris Brunt have performed admirably in positions alien to them, sacrificing themselves for the wider cause.

But extending their secondments into another season would surely represent a flawed policy.

Villa and Leicester brutally exposed Albion's lack of outlet balls when pressed.

Matt Phillips, Jeffrey Schlupp, George Boyd, Zaha and Yannick Bolasie among others have enjoyed varying degrees of success against us in wide areas in recent weeks.

Pulis will know that, on one hand, it's very nearly mission accomplished while, on the other, the hard work has only just begun. Come on you Baggies!

[comments_cta header="What do you think?" text="Do you agree with our West Brom blogger's views this week?" button="Log in and start commenting"]

[interruptor]