Terry Wills sees Albion reach their target.
At last – Tony’s Pulis’s oft repeated assertion that he wouldn’t be confident of retaining our Greed League status until the all-important forty points had been accumulated, has been achieved. The final one courtesy of a typical backs to the wall defensive display against a battling Sunderland side in desperate need of three points to ease their perilous position in the table.
It certainly wasn’t a great spectacle. Shorn of scoring attempts it merely confirmed that Pulis’s ‘must not lose’ attitude approach had once again had the desired result. Much of the credit was down to another international class goalkeeping display from Ben Foster, who could yet force his way into Roy Hodgson’s Euro 2016 squad if he keps up this level of performance.
An encouraging sign was Pulis’s decision to name 16 years old Jonathan Leko among the substitutes, a decision that Leko admitted left him “lost for words”. Even more so when he replaced Saido Berahino late in the game. Pulis went on to say that he wanted to give the best of the Academy youngsters their chance in due course. Will that be next season or, hopefully from a fans point of view, in this season’s remaining games? All of these are against sides that still have much to play for either challenging for a top six spot or still striving to avoid possible relegation.
First up another televised game away game against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. Naturally they’ll be confident of bagging a win to boost their hopes but who knows considering the illogical results we’ve seen to date? (Leicester City almost certainly Premier League Champions – I must be dreaming!).
The possibility of reaching or beating our best ever points total will be difficult so all we can do is take each game as it comes, forgetting that we still have games in the pipeline against Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham United and Liverpool. But that can wait. All that matters at present is knowing we will be among the best 17 teams in the table at the end of the season.
