Well I'm glad I didn't watch every second of that game. Van Dijk looks assured albeit not really tested.
I'm annoyed by so much thing at the moment. By the simple square passes that end up couple of yards behind the player on the receiving end. By slow, lofted crosses to the box which cause no problems to the keeper and the defenders. By poor touches. By waiting too much tome to take a shot. By Pelle's flicks.
Indeed. It was so good the last two seasons that I told all my friends to pay for it. Now it's simply awful. I won't be renewing unless they buck up a bit. Unfortunately, I did manage to find a stream that was working, so I saw the game in the end. That's 90 minutes of my life gone. Vin
An ok result...an away draw. I was concerned when we let Everton score 3 goals and let Newcastle score 2....back to our clean sheets. We can build on this.
To be fair, the game was boring but we are back to playing the right way. WBA didn't create a thing after Lambert went off and it had the look of a game played against ten men. Amazing lack of ambition from the home side. Yes, poor, but a point away and more competent. Van Dyke looked superb all afternoon. Pelle looked awful.
Another clean sheet - which is good. At the other end however; definitely some progress required. Surprised that Jay was taken off and Pelle kept on the pitch. I felt the game was for the taking if we managed better in the final third.
What an awful game, with all the same problems as last season, good approach play but a real lack of quality in the final third. Wouldn't like to count the number of stray crosses or passes, not helped by Pelle never breaking into a sweat? Van Dijk looks assured and comfortable on the ball, JWP is at best Championship standard and Tadic looked like he was about to disappear up his own whatsit. Easy 2 points lost.
On the positive side, I thought that Fonte, Van Dijk and Victor looked very assured and composed. Van Dijk was great, put Rondon in his pocket, played some great diagonal balls, stepped out of defence a couple of times and started the attack. Cedric, I don't know, he's an attacking full back, but so much of the time I see him on the back foot, dribbling the ball towards our own goal, instead of the other way. Can't wait the return of Bertrand, once he's back, I think we'll really kick of. It hard now when one of your fullback is no threat at all.
Why is always Pelle who gets all the heat? It confuses me every time. He wasn't any worse than anyone else out there. There were a bunch of times he held off a defender to make a nice layoff to Davis/JWP/whoever and they immediately gave away possession with a sloppy pass. I would say Pelle should have been more of a threat to shoot, but took bad touches. But that was the case with everyone today.
Agreed. As bad as the crossing was, West Brom also isn't the sort of team where you're likely to get much joy from pumping crosses in from wide areas. Quite possible we'd have been just as useless with either Jay or Long in the middle, but it was a match that was crying out for that sort of tweak.
Yep West Brom have turned from a fast counter attacking team. To a Pulis solid defending but not much up front team.
Unless your a top 6 club an away draw is always a good result (provided u win the home game which we did vrs Norwich)
Everyone was bad, agreed. For me, it's a tactical thing...if you're unable to get the striker into the game, or if the striker isn't getting themselves into it, it's worth changing things up. Doesn't mean that Pelle is awful, but all XI on the pitch can and should be substituted if they're having a minimal impact. On giving possession away, I'm with you there as well. Would have liked to see someone a little more chaotic, like Juanmi, brought in earlier. If our steady hands are going to give the ball away making simple passes, why not have someone making runs into dangerous areas. Long does one thing really well: he moves, and through that movement he creates pockets of space where the likes of Mane and Tadic can operate. In a match in which we were doing absolutely nothing to unsettle their back line, that movement might be useful.
