Albion reaction tells a story

Crystal Palace 1 West Bromwich Albion 1

An awful match at Selhurst Park said precious little about Albion's aspirations, writes Steve Madeley.

The faces of the rival managers said everything.

As the final whistle sounded Neil Warnock, the colourful pragmatist now in charge of Crystal Palace, punched the air, danced a jig and cracked the broadest of grins in celebration of a 1-1 home draw.

Tony Mowbray, the man who has got Albion fans dreaming, shook Warnock's hand and vanished down the tunnel with the scowl of a man who had found 50p and lost a tenner.

By the time he appeared before the media some 15 minutes later Mowbray was still sighing.

The Baggies boss seemed vaguely embarrased by a result that sent most travelling fans home happy, and would have done the same for many a Championship manager.

It was a fascinating insight into the way Albion are viewed, both inside and outside of the Baggies camp.

And it was a clear sign of just how far Mowbray has raised the bar of ambition and imagination at The Hawthorns.

For any other team in this fiercely contested division, a four-point haul from Plymouth and Palace in a four-day spell would have sparked a reaction to make Warnock look shy and retiring.

But the Baggies wanted six. What's more, they believed they could get them, and anything less was regarded as a minor failure.

As for birthday boy Warnock, his post-match expression allied to his pre-game programme notes showed precisely the regard in which the rest of the league views the talents at Mowbray's disposal.

"I'm convinced that if they had beaten Derby in the play-offs they would be more than holding their own in the Premier League at the present time," wrote Warnock. "That's how good I believe their squad is."

And, given his joy at the conclusion of a rough and ready encounter, the man all Albion fans love to hate clearly meant every word.0

He is not alone in his opinions on the Baggies. Many opposition mangers have espoused the view that Mowbray has the Championship's most fearsome arsenal at his disposal.

The whole division now believes that Albion will claim one of the automatic promotion places into next year's Premier League.

And even within the camp the Baggies players and staff most know that they should fulfil the prophecy.

Their in-built caution and sporting upbringing will prevent Mowbray and Co from looking that far ahead.

But given their reaction to a very useful point at one of the division's toughest battlegrounds, they clearly now expect victory each time they take to the field. All of which leaves them facing the rest of the season with a tide of optimism sweeping the club and its supporters, but also with the weight of the pressure that favouritism brings.

Mowbray and his players have generated a wave of expectation at The Hawthorns. Their task for the rest of the season is to ride it and avoid being drowned.

There was little evidence at Selhurst Park on Saturday that reputation is weighing on their shoulders, although the physical demands of three intense battles in seven days clearly took something of a toll.

For most Championship sides this would have ranked as a decent display – nothing special but a hard-earned point.

For Mowbray and his men it was below-par, as the man himself would concede in his post-match assessment.

They never threatened to hit the heights they had reached at Plymouth four days earlier. Had they done so a game but largely one dimensional Palace side would surely have been swept aside in a similar manner to the Pilgrims, and to Watford and Coventry before them.

Instead, in a stark contrast of styles, Warnock's 'up-and-at-em' side had enough to restrict Mowbray's more artistic side to only occasional bursts of their fluent best.

While the Baggies stuck largely to their principles of crispness and movement, Palace stuck to theirs.

Which meant a string of high crosses, a series of long balls and non-stop uncomprimising challenges designed to let the Baggies know they had been in a game.

For the most part Mowbray's men coped well with the uncomplicated attack. But on one costly occasion they failed to organise properly at a set-piece and Clinton Morrison, probably the division's hottest striker at present, won his side a point.

And ultimately that was fair enough. Neither team did enough to win and neither, despite the Baggies' greater desire to entertain, deserved to lose.

In the opening stages the Baggies showed a few signs that they might recreate their sublime first-half display at Home Park, but the champagne football never arrived despite Mowbray's men taking an eighth-minute lead.

The sides had engaged in a spell of shadow boxing before Jonathan Greening's corner was headed back to him by Clint Hill and the Baggies captain saw his second cross glanced into his own net by Mark Hudson under pressure from Roman Bednar.

Both Robert Koren and Filipe Teixeira tried for a second for Albion, the former firing wide and the latter picking out keeper Julian Speroni.

But Palace's direct approach was always a threat and keeper Dean Kiely had already claimed a couple of crosses before the decisive set-piece that brought the equaliser.

Ben Watson's delivery was helped back across goal by Jose Fonte and Clinton Morrison was alarmingly unmarked to fire home.

Things might have been different had Bednar added to his two goals on Wednesday following a wonderful pass by Teixeira to send him clear. But, despite beating a defender with a turn and Speroni with his shot, Bednar was denied by the woodwork.

That was really as good as it got for Albion.