Round peg in the wrong round hole

Albion blogger Jarrod Hill believes head coach Roberto Di Matteo filled the wrong hole in the squad with the acquisition of Ben Watson from Wigan.

Two days have now passed since Wednesday night's FA Cup game against Reading at the Hawthorns and I am still struggling not to get angry about what I witnessed.

When Reading name came out of the hat as our next opponents in the competition, the worse case scenario was to have to play a replay and for that to go to extra time and for us to lose after that.

Unfortunately the worse case scenario became reality after some truly awful defending. As many of you will know, in recent weeks I have been relaying my fears of our lack of cover in certain positions, namely at right-back.

Gonzalo Jara's injury has left a hole in our squad due to the amount of positions he could cover but the truth is he was easily our best right-back at the club. Gianni Zuiverloon's form ever since joining us has been erratic, when he plays well he looks very good, but when he has a poor game it is usually a defining part of the games result.

Wednesday night was no different, as I watched with sheer disbelief his incapacity to deal with a hopeful punt up field with only 30 seconds of the game to go. It was frighteningly bad, and having watched it again yesterday it doesn't get any more handsome.

On the opposite side of the pitch young Joe Mattock again looked shaky. His performance was by no means as poor as his previous one against Bristol City, but I would not say it was acceptable either.

I must admit my confusion when our management team brought in Ben Watson from Wigan. The lad may be a talented player who can have a positive impact on our season, but the truth is we desperately needed a right-back and Wednesday night we all witnessed the reason why.

In fact, the whole of our defence needs suitable cover. Our former manager Tony Mowbray left our club with plenty of midfielders, due to his penchant for the Borja Valero's and Robert Koren's of this world.

But when you look at our first choice back four of Jara, Jonas Olsson, Gabriel Tamas and Marek Cech, the cover for them is Gianni Zuiverloon, Joe Mattock and Abdoulaye Meite.

Simply not enough in either quantity and some would argue quality, so with two loan positions available we signed two midfielders!

I am confused, as in two weeks time we could have midfield options available to us that includes Graham Dorrans, Youssouf Mulumbu, James Morrison, Koren, Andy Slory, Frank Nouble, Chris Brunt, Jerome Thomas and Giles Barnes.

Yet at the moment we have one right-back and two left-backs, one of which is out of form and another who struggles to remain fit. At centre back we have Meite, again a player who caught the eye for all the wrong reasons on Wednesday night.

Head coach Roberto Di Matteo must believe we can win promotion based on our strength in the middle of the park and I hope he is right, because as I view it we have a squad that is imbalanced.

Before I go on to take a look at tomorrow's match against Derby County I must make one more observation regarding Wednesday's game. I heard a few fans giving goalkeeper Scott Carson some grief and one or two of them I spoke to.

I have criticised our club captain in the past when his form has been poor and I will praise him when I believe he is playing well. On Wednesday night he made save after save, putting in a very good performance as his form this season has been pretty good.

We have enough problems elsewhere, so maybe too many fans are still judging young Scott based on his inconsistent performances of last season.

Rant over and I would like to apologise to the fan I spoke to on Wednesday night. I appreciate you have your own opinion, but to start singing 'Deano Deano' towards Carson simply wound me up and after a frustrating night you needed to be told.

So now we welcome Derby and a team who are typically Jekyll and Hyde like so many in the Championship. RDM's options are considerably boosted with the availability of Thomas, Cech, new boy Watson and fellow loanee Nouble.

As we get down to the business end of the season results are all that matter and, although Wednesday night's game had many worrying aspects to it, I am confident with a number of players returning to the first-team fold we can push on and get three points tomorrow.

I just hope we can keep all of our key players fit until the end of the season, I am now of the opinion that it will probably decide our fate. Olsson and Tamas have developed a real understanding and Tamas has become a consistent performer alongside the inspirational Olsson.

Keeping them both fit is essential, as is keeping our most potent attacking players fit. Into that category I would place JT, Bednar and Dorrans. We have seen how much we miss Jerome Thomas during his suspensions, his pace and directness drives teams onto the back foot and creates lots of chances for the team.

So with the cup out of the way it is now time to push on towards gaining promotion, three points will be a good start tomorrow.

Come on you Baggies.