Terry Wills has needed a couple of days to get over Albion’s defeat to Wigan
Ouch, ouch and for good measure ouch.
Wigan are surely the poorest team in the Greed League,so what does that say about Albion’s performance (sorry, meant to say non-performance) that saw the Baggies slip to their fifth home defeat from eight games?
The after-match comments from Roy Hodgson baffled every Baggies fan, to put it mildly. Stating that “We couldn’t play better” was unbelievable. He obviously understands the game far more than the average supporters ever will, but come on Roy. If you really hold that opinion the paying customers will be staggered.
Even me, firmly believing it’s always better to be realistic than optimistic when looking at any Baggies game, dnticipated a valuable three points to take us to a far more comfortable league placing and ensure Wigan would be further adrift and struggling to climb away from the bottom three. So what happened, and why?
Numerous reasons, all so very familiar. Gift an equaliser by passing the ball to an unmarked Victor Moses. Miss chances, concede a fourth successive penalty, refused a spot-kick at the other end, misplaced passing that had fans tearing out their hair (If they still had any left!) and when they did hit the target they found the visiting keeper looking virtually unbeatable – curse him.
Roy Hodgson has a major dilemma and it’s all of his own making. We finished last season on a high, playing a 4-5-1 that encouraged supporters to anticipate a much better season. The close season saw Shane Long signed and obviously led the head coach to believe he and Peter Odemwingie could link up and be successful in a 4-4-2 formation. Oh dear, perhaps, and it is a perhaps, some time in the future they could be a lethal pairing, but up to now all it’s done is to prove this is far from the case.
This means that should he pursue a 4-4-2 line up Roy will need to decide which of the two will be sitting on the bench when the team is announced. Over to you Roy, but I can tell you that judging by the fans reaction making their way home, plus local radio phone ins, it will have to be Odemwingie left out. And as he’s reputedly the highest paid player on the books and has been assured that Roy Hodgson has no intention of selling him in the January transfer window, that causes a problem never envisaged when Shane Long joined the club.
So with that awful defeat still looming large in mind and not many players anywhere near their best, the season is back to one of glorious uncertainty. A defeat this week at Blackburn would be another disaster and with the next games including the likes of Manchester City, Newcastle and Spurs it’s becoming more than a probability than a possibility that we will be in for a long, cold, hard winter – and I don’t mean the weather.
Further confirmation? Played 15, 15 points, a mere14 goals scored and a minus nine goal difference. Okay, it’s still far too early to start running to push the panic button but without a significant improvement that COULD eventually happen.
Make sure it doesn’t lads, please.