We have actually led the league in shots from outside the box all season. Just apart from a few klich screamers none of them have gone in!
Can’t remember many on target tbh. Certainly not recently. Maybe my memory’s slowing up like the rest of Me
We've had some great games but that goes down as our : Performance of the season Every man jack of that side played their part. We played like champions making a team with plenty of premiership experience look very ordinary Positives Early goal, one of the quickest goals in our history. Team performance. Totally dominated the game. First time we've scored four goals since Derby back in August. At last we finished a team off & made it a comfortable ride for our fans. Pablo's sublime strike + influential throughout the game once again. Roberts growing into a top player, scared the living daylights out of the Baggies with his runs through the heart of their defence. Alioski was everywhere, on the left, down the middle, on the right, at that back & finally from his LB role pops up in the six-yard box to tap in the 4th goal. Ali is like battery operated bunny. Casilla deserved his clean sheet at last. Ayling back on song. Pontus & Cooper solid as a rock against their free-scoring front three. My boy Phillips tenacious in midfield & at the back, some of those tackles. Klich looking good again. Harrison's best game of the season. Bamford's two goals, led the line brilliantly up top. Dallas, steady eddie. Shackleton's impact in the few minutes he was on the park. Magical atmosphere from the start to finish Negatives Only one quibble, we are still giving silly free-kicks away just outside box, on the plus side we are defending them well Ratings 8 Casilla 8 Ayling 9 Cooper 9 Jansson 9.5 Alioski joint MOTM 9 Phillips 8 Klich 9 Hernandez 9.5 Roberts joint MOTM 9 Bamford 8 Harrison 7 Dallas 8 Shackleton
It was a charged big game atmosphere so they were obviously pumped, but the first goal was everything. prior to yesterday we had conceded 8 and scored 3 goals in the first 15 minutes of matches. A crazy stat. WBA are slow starters too. We had less shots yesterday than our average this season, but put a much higher proportion of them away. Obviously a better standard of chance but that’s football. Someone posted we’ve won 18 on the trot when scoring first. Different game when sides have to come at us instead of parking the bus. Outstanding effort though and the hunting in packs when they had possession was fantastic.
Well just watched it, fantastic performance but the great thing about knowing the score was that I could really relax and watch the football. If I have any slight criticism then I agree with 1964, we give far too many free kicks near to our penalty box. I also slightly disagree with him in that I thought Harrison is not good, lost the ball a lot. But churlish not to enjoy that. Come on Millwall and the wendies.
That's my take too. 100% agree. Other thing to mention was the atmosphere. It was so charged that even the ESL fans were standing for large parts of the game. I've got a habit of arriving a wee bit late. I was actually in early as I gave my Baggie mate a lift in. I received the usual 'shock/horror' abuse from those around me & announced that I'd made a point of being early as we were going to win 5-0. Much laughter. 16 seconds later, the laughter abated. Believe it or not, I was getting abuse at the end because I'd short-changed them - they expected 5-0. Not often I'm that convincing.
But that's the thing about creative players. They have to take risks & realise that they won't all come off - otherwise it would be a cricket score if they did! Pablo is exactly the same. Some of his passing is howling, yet it's the little gems that click which gets results. A winger is also going to lose the ball more often than a common or garden midfielder, for instance. Not only is he usually going full pelt, but there's always 2 or 3 players surrounding him, knowing that there's an 80%+ chance of a horizontal cross going in, making him more predictable to dispossess. That's why a winger takes more risks than anyone else.
I have.its called The Soccer Sentinel by Arthur E Thomson of 32 Malvern Road Leeds 11 and printed at the Yorkshire Press Thornton Road Bradford
How do you know Olof is packing a caber not a needle? Anything you gents want to own up to? now is the time.
