By Terry Wills.

Now what did say last week prior to the Manchester United opening game?

Ah yes…

“A fixture leaving Albion facing what appears to be a ‘certain’ loss of three points?”

And so it came to pass- BUT – not before Fergie’s men had been forced to endure a determined fight back that could have seen Roy Hodgson’s side at least sharing the points. It wasn’t to be, though, and taking into account the early dominance from a top class United, when after taking the lead, they kindly missed a couple of chances that would have settled the game, Albion did more than enough to warrant a promising start to the campaign.

Naturally with virtually the same team as last season apart from Ben Foster and Shane Long it was always going to be difficult. What of the new boys? Foster looked a little unsure early on but improved, although in truth he had limited opportunity to show off his saving abilities due to the defence’s marking and tackling that restricted the Salford Reds to a minimum of clear cut openings.

Shane Long was enthusiastic, lively, and a constant menace, ensuring instant fame after equalising Wayne Rooney’s opener-helped by a poor, but expensive, goalkeeping misjudgement from Fergie’s new signing David Gea. (He could have bought Scott Carson much cheaper).

Outstanding, was, as now expected, Yousouf Mulumbu. If he loses the ball he simply battles back, an enduring feature appreciated by his ever growing band of supporters. Somen Tchoyi – what a character – caused constant worry for the United defence. His unorthodox style frequently posed problems and should he maintain this form he’ll leave Roy Hodgson with a happy problem once he has a full squad to choose from.

It’s fair to say that the bulk of the team had decent games although I did feel that James Morrison, on his day a quality player, failed to inspire. Surely Graham Dorrans has to be worth a place in the starting line-up? Naturally to an extent, it’s the situation surrounding Peter Odemwingie that’s causing much concern and debate. Off to Wigan? No way but should a team such as Spurs come in with a bid, as some rumours indicate, then that would be a different matter entirely. I personally feel it’s his agent that’s striving to improve Peter’s salary, in the process fattening his own bank balance, so for now we’ll simply have to await developments.

Saturday and it’s a 5-30 televised game at Stamford Bridge where a certain Roberto Di Matteo will be hoping and expecting to see his ex-club on the end of yet another defeat. We’ve failed to gain a single point from the Pensioners (does anyone call them that anymore?) in any of our previous Greed League games. In fact, we rarely even manage to score against them.

Again I wish I could be optimistic but naturally I fervently hope to be proved wrong, so it has to be another setback before setting off for a mid-week League Cup game at Bournemouth. Given the choice of progressing to the next round or taking a point at Chelsea I know what my preference would be, although in saying that I imagine the team to play the Cherries will be vastly different from the one trotting out to face Roman Abramovitch’s expensive international outfit.

“Come on you Baggies”