When you look at the fixture list at the start of the season and try and pick out the most difficult games, then West Brom will quite often fly under the radar because you’re looking at more obvious candidates. However, as they proved last season against us, they are a handful at the Hawthornes. Last year it was just at the start of James Morrison‘s reign as manager and after the terrible managerial appointments of Ryan Mason and Eric Peters, West Brom were in genuine danger of ending up in League 1. In the early days of his reign, Morrison made West Brom incredibly difficult to beat and that included the game against Saints where they were probably slightly unfortunate to only come away with the draw, which we got courtesy of a late slightly fortunate goal by Cyle Larin, as his header looped off a defender and dropped into the top corner of the net, and just about the only place where the goalkeeper wouldn’t be able to get it.

Fast forward to this season however, and West Brom are one of the top performing sides in the Championship, still above us in the table and with genuine expectation of making the playoffs. Morrison has adapted things this season and they are a lot more expansive than they were at the tail end of last, helped by the signing of one of our old boys, Jimmy Jay Morgan, who plays up front on his own. Morgan was one of those players who was in our Academy who refused to sign his first professional contract and left to follow the cash to Chelsea. He made the laughable claim at the time that he was going to get in their first team which of course never came to pass, but he has started life in the Championship really well. They have others who will be dangerous as well such as Isaac Price and I remember in the preview to last year‘s game I mentioned Jayson Molumby being one of the worst players I had ever seen in my life but it was he who put the Baggies ahead against us latching onto a scramble on our 6-yard line.

Because I’ve accepted we’re never going to get nine points in a three-game week, I am anticipating being happy with a point from this game to go with the three we got from QPR at the weekend. There is a small chance I guess, that we dispatch them in the way that we’ve dispatched all the play-off contending teams that we’ve played so far, when it turns out that we just have too much for these sides. That however would be a surprise.

It became obvious from Tonda’s press conference that neither Larin, nor Jander were going to be fit for this game and when the teams were announced, it became obvious that Leo Scienza was not going to make it either. Into the team come Flynn Downes, Sam Edozie and Divin Mubama, who I kind of feel is in a bit of a last chance saloon to make any sort of impression. He comes in for the rested Lewis Dobbin today who has proved his worth but Mubama has yet to prove his. Dobbin is on the bench today and so is Princewill Ehibhatioman after a ridiculous start to the season in the under 21s, where he is averaging about two goals a game. I doubt we’ll see him on the pitch today but stranger things have happened.

Also remaining in the team is Kuryu Matsuki. Matsuki has got himself into the Japan squad and was largely expected to stay there for the upcoming Asia Cup. He was likely to be absent for five weeks in January, but the tournament was postponed this morning because of the political situation in Saudi Arabia so whilst it’s not particularly good news for the player, it is good news for us because he’s been a man in form recently, chipping in with regular goals. There was a chance that Tom Fellows would play today with it being against his former club, but Tonda Eckert has once again shown that he’s not bothered about that sort of thing and Fellows finds himself on the bench yet again where he has been getting splinters in his arse after being hauled off at half-time against Pompey.

Away we go and Schlotterbeck plays the ball forward to Edozie, who takes a fucking horrible touch and gives the ball away to Molumby, which allows West Brom to break down our left and Jimmy Jay Morgan is clean through and in acres of Manning-shaped space. Here comes the inevitable Morgan goal… and he smashes it, and it’s shite from about 8 yards but well over the bar.

Unperturbed, we try again and another ball up to Edozie from Schlotterbeck and this time he tries to hold off the player and just presents it back to West Brom again. Another break down their right and a low cross which no one latches onto. Can we take Edozie off and play with ten?

West Brom are all over us and Molumby emerges with the ball after a midfield challenge from Downes and drives forward before hammering a shot at goal which is straight at Peretz and he easily shovels it over the bar.

West Brom create another chance, again down our left, with Edozie and Manning again not getting anywhere near the West Brom players and another cross comes in from Nzingoula this time, which Morgan volleys over the bar. He’s been nudged by Bree and is pleading for a penalty. Get up you soft twat.

Mubama is a soft twat as well and Saints forward play is not working at all. No one is holding the ball up and West Brom are first to every tackle and every loose ball in their own half.

West Brom right back Parreira plays it to Molumby who is in acres of space infield and he clips the ball forward over Manning to meet Nzingoula’s run. He gets a touch past Stephens, who hangs out a leg and down he goes like a sack of shit and the referee gives it. 100% correct as there was definitely a touch even on first view. Up steps Isaac Price to take it against Peretz….. Miss it you Twat! No chance and he buries it in the opposite top corner to where Peretz has dived.

The object of the exercise now is to get to half-time without conceding another goal but we are doing our very very best to make sure we don’t manage that. Schlotterbeck barges Nzingoula to the deck but the ref plays on and allows Morgan to hit a low cross, across the area which we clear. It is noticeable that Flynn Downes is losing his shit with the collective malaise amongst our players.

Still West Brom controlling the entire game and we are not getting close to them. Mepham chips a ball down the middle which is expertly controlled by Price but luckily, he blazes it wide. So easy to create that chance.

Somehow, miraculously we get to half-time just the one down. There has to be a significant improvement from everybody for us to have any chance of getting anything out of this game. Yes, we have subs on the bench to bring on but without a massive uplift in the levels from absolutely everybody, we aren’t getting shit out of this. Half time replay catch up and it’s 100% a penalty and dreadful defending all round.

In the event, Tonda sends out exactly the same team for the second half, which is surprising, given that there were about eight players out there who could not have complained at all if they had been dragged. Straight from the kick-off, we are better however, with Matsuki combining with Bree and winning a corner. It may not sound like much but it’s a damn site more than we did in the first half. We try the move from the weekend and Manning‘s corner finds Schlotterbeck, but it’s blocked in the middle and cleared. Immediately though, Saints are 20 yards further up the pitch and suddenly West Brom have got problems

Matsuki feeds the ball infield to Azaz, who switches it left to Manning. A couple of touches and then in it comes off his left foot, met at the back post by Matsuki and headed down along the 6 yard line and there is Edozie, who cannot miss. 1-1. That’s all it took, 10 minutes of intensity and we equalise.

Having discovered the formula to put West Brom on the rack, we immediately forget about all that and the Baggies come flying back at us again as a low cross from the right misses everyone and we just about get it away and Morgan turns and sees another shot blocked, this time by Stephens. When the ball comes into the box, Bree goes down with a head injury but it’s clearly a shithouse one because he’s back up again as soon as the game is stopped but not soon enough to not have to spend a minute off the pitch. Captain Jack uses the break to tell the Baggies fans behind the goal to calm down. They like him more after that.

More West Brom pressure and Price puts in a cross to the back post which is hooked across goal again and Styles low effort is kicked away from in front of the goal by Stephens, cementing his status as the most popular player in The Hawthorns.

Back come Saints though, with Downes threading a lovely ball in between the defenders for Azaz to run onto on the left-hand side and it’s surely a pull back to Mubama, but he doesn’t get his foot around it and it runs tamely through to the goalkeeper.

Mubama is replaced with Dobbin, which gives Saints a bit more of a press upfront and West Brom try and play out but give the ball to Bree about 30 yards out, allowing JWP to put Azaz through on the right hand side and his low cross flicks off a defender and very nearly sneaks in the near post but for an outstretched foot from O’Leary.

O’Leary is the centre of attention again as he begins knocking it around and his 6 yard box before playing a horribly shit ball straight out to the edge of the area, which is intercepted by Downes but instead of just shooting like he surely should do, he tries to slip the ball sideways to Dobbin and succeeds only in presenting it to a defender to hack away. Fuck sake.

Saints are looking more likely to score now though, with us seemingly having more energy in midfield now. Schlotterbeck plays one of his trademark straight passes into the midfield and Azaz lets it run across himself and plays a beautiful first time ball to send Dobbin clean through on goal and faced with O’Leary he produces a kind of scuffed bobbly effort which hits the goalkeeper’s foot and is cleared. Fucking hell.

West Brom are still insisting on pissing around at the back and O’Leary gets closed down by Dobbin and passes it straight to Azaz on the edge of the box, but he has to turn away from a defender before chipping it at the far post and seeing it go about a foot over the bar. West Brom are still a threat though and a cross comes in from the left wing which is met by Heggebo about six yards out and his flick brings a really good save out of Peretz at the near post.

Matsuki is replaced by West Brom old boy Fellows as we reach the last couple of minutes and a Bree cross is cleared as far as Schlotterbeck about 25 yards out, but his control is poor and now it’s a three on two break and Diakite works the ball wide to substitute Bany and JWP does just enough to force him wide and his shot hits the outside of the post. I guess this has been really entertaining for anyone who might be a neutral watching this. The End.

At the end of the day, a draw is a good result and what was an absolute game of two halves. In the first half, we couldn’t have been more second-best if we tried. West Brom had energy, we didn’t. West Brom had attacking intent, we didn’t. West Brom won every challenge, we didn’t. West Brom picked up every second ball, we didn’t. The only reason we kept our head above water in that first half was West Brom’s inability to get a shot on target. At the end of the day, their only shot on target in that half was the penalty which was an absolute gift with neither Ryan Manning nor Jack Stephens covering themselves in glory.

It was interesting to hear Tonda take the blame for the first half, but that’s two games in a row now where we have not come out and played with the required intensity off the ball. He talked about maybe overthinking things given limited training time. He seems to like to do this thing where one of the full-backs plays infield and today it was Ryan Manning‘s turn, which meant that Manning was never there when West Brom attacked down our left and Schlotterbeck was pulled out of the middle. I really do not like this tactic and do not know why we take so long to change it when they are obviously killing us down the side where the full back is in field.

Aside from the QPR game just three days ago, I was also put in mind of the Middlesbrough away game in the play-off semi-final last year where we basically couldn’t string two passes together and couldn’t get near the opposition. Tonda can take the blame but It doesn’t help however, when your forward players are basically giving the ball back to the opposition at every opportunity. When we reached half-time just the one goal behind, there were possibly only three of the outfield players who could’ve had any complaint if they had been dragged off and substituted.

As it turned out, we kept the same 11 on the pitch after half-time and they went out with a better attitude and it took just ten minutes to get level with two of the worst players from the first half, Manning and Edozie, playing a major part in our goal. After that we stepped off again and allowed West Brom back into it before creating three glorious chances to win it with Flynn Downes failing to get a shot away when presented with the ball by the goalkeeper, Finn Azaz failing to pick out Mubama for a tap-in and Lewis Dobbin looking like a player who would rather be anywhere else rather than bearing down on goal with the ball of his feet in a one-on-one with a keeper. It’s weird how we can be a team who have scored so many goals but still sometimes look completely lacking in confidence in front of goal. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised today though, with two of our main attacking players not available.

The replacement for Scienza and Larin today were Edozie and Mubama. Edozie scored the goal of course when he was in the right place at the right time to tap in a chance that he really couldn’t miss but other than that, he was largely fucking dreadful. It’s hard to imagine a more inept performance than what he put in the first half. All he seemed to do, was start every single West Brom attack by giving the ball away. He also gave no help at all to Ryan Manning at left-back, who was having his own personal nightmare, basically having one of those games where he just doesn’t fancy defending and so doesn’t do it. Never in the right place and never winning a tackle.

Up front, Divin Mubama can be given a bit of a pass for the first half because he got no service, but he never wins a challenge despite being a big lump and never reacts quicker than the defender to get to a loose ball. If he has pace he never shows it and just looks like a big passive boy who needs a rocket to fire him up. If that was an audition to get more minutes, he didn’t exactly provide a compelling case.

He wasn’t alone in that first half as West Brom won every single challenge and picked up every single loose ball. Their midfield of Molumby and Diakite are not better players than Flynn Downes and JWP but they certainly looked it in that first half. Our boys got to grips a little bit in the second half and proved why they’ve got the bigger reputation. I enjoyed the performance of Matsuki on the right hand side in the second half who was constantly trying to make things happen but overall, the whole attacking effort was inconsistent.

Defensively we actually did okay apart from when we gave away the penalty, which was a dereliction of duty from Manning and a really clumsy effort by Jack Stephens inside the box. West Brom and Isaac Price dispatched the penalty of course but despite dominating that first half, they didn’t make Daniel Peretz make a save. In fact, I can only remember one real save that he had to make and that was right at the end from Heggebo’s near post flick. There were some good last ditch defensive blocks from our boys, in particular from Bree, Schlotterbeck, Stephens and JWP. The much anticipated Jimmy Jay Morgan goal against us didn’t happen as he lashed a couple over the bar in the first half and then disappeared from the game altogether in the second.

We still don’t quite have that big dog mentality that you need in this division. As said, having got back level early in the second half, we really should’ve won the game, but instead of pressing home our advantage, we allowed West Brom to play their way back into it and this was never more evident than in the five minutes after we scored, when we barely touched the ball. However, it is hard to be too critical with the run that the team is on and the fact that this was a very difficult game without our main two attacking players.

We are visiting Preston North End on Saturday and they’ve just lost at home again and are currently bottom of the league on just 5 points from 14 games. If we didn’t quite have the big dog mentality today, we really have to have it on Saturday.

Bring it on

Up the fucking Saints.