West Brom 3 Blues 1 .. Ron's Report

Last updated : 21 September 2010 By Richard Barker

There's a classic one that applies to this game, but I'm not going to use it.  I'll just say that it was a match in which each of the two halves was quite different to the other.

I personally felt that Blues probably would have been unchanged from the Liverpool game, but once James McFadden was ruled out for some time with injury, that obviously needed to change.  The obvious choice was to bring Alexander Hleb in for his debut in McFadden's position (from the Liverpool game) just behind Cameron Jerome.  That's what happened.

For the first half an hour Blues were very much in control.  They also went 1-0 up in that period.  Hleb was neat and tidy, dropping deep to get involved, whilst Barry Ferguson, Craig Gardner, Lee Bowyer and Seb Larsson absolutely bossed the midfield.  It genuinely looked like men against boys.  Blues may not have necessarily created a hatful of chances in that period, but they were so much in control.

The goal itself was a nicely worked free-kick in which the ball was clipped towards the far post where Scott Dann powered a header across goal for Jerome to prod home from close range.  With the way Blues were controlling proceedings, it seemed that it would be a matter of time before more were added.

There were, however, one or two warnings of what may be about to come towards the end of the first half when Albion generated a little pressure themselves, without really threatening.  Blues did let them back into the game a little though just before half-time and that perhaps gave them some hope.

I'm conscious that this whole report may end up being one in which I criticise Blues for letting the game slip and seem to suggest that what happened after half-time was all down to Blues.  It was, in part, but credit is also due to Albion and to Roberto Di Matteo.

At the break he took off Marc Antoine Fortune (who'd barely had a kick against Roger Johnson and Dann) and brought on Graham Dorrans.  This meant that he switched things around in his 4-5-1 formation, shoving Peter Odemwingie up front from his wide position.  It worked.

Basically, second half Albion were far more direct and used the pace of Odemwingie and Jerome Thomas.  Thomas is a player who I feel has never quite fulfilled his potential, but I consider him a top player on his day.  From his wide left position he targeted Stephen Carr (days like this remind you of Carr's age) and quite often Carr couldn't cope.  Indeed, Albion's equaliser came when Thomas attacked Carr, backed him up, got him facing the wrong way and drove into the area.  Once there, his ball was clinical and either Odemwingie or a Blues defender deflected the ball past Ben Foster.  You knew that would lift Albion and that Blues would be up against it.

That was true enough, but Bowyer gifting Albion their second didn't help.  His touch (I think he tried to control the ball but it got away from him) on the edge of his area was horrendous from a Blues perspective and, from an Albion perspective, was a perfect through ball to Odemwingie.  The ball itself drew Foster out, Odemwingie rounded him and it was 2-1 almost immediately.

Odemwingie is someone I've seen a fair bit of for Nigeria and in some ways he's a classic "World Cup player".  By that I mean that on occasions you'll watch him and think, "Jesus, this guy's good - pace, ability, finishing - he's got it all!"  On others though, he'll be wasteful, look disinterested and completely fail to produce the goods.  There's plenty of pacy yet inconsistent wingers and forwards around.  Jerome is one (he didn't do much wrong here, mind).  Jerome Thomas is another.  Then you look at a different level, but the likes of Walcott, Wright-Phillips, Lennon, Routledge, etc.  These pacy attacking players are often the same.  Blues caught Odemwingie on a bad day.  A bad day for Blues, that is.  A good day for Albion.

Bowyer lost his head after his mistake, got injured in a challenge where he'd actually gone in with his studs up, got booked shortly afterwards for retaliating and then got substituted.  That was meant to take him out of the spotlight, but he proceeded to argue with Albion fans in the stand once he was in the dugout.

He wasn't the only Blues player to lose it, as it were.  So many Blues players simply disappeared in the second half - and the reliable ones too.  In my last report (Liverpool) I praised the likes of Carr, Ferguson and Johnson for their leadership qualities, but the three of them were the biggest culprits in the second half here.  They quite literally disappeared out of the game.  Gardner too.  With backs against the wall you wanted these guys to try and calm those around them and drive Blues back at Albion but they failed miserably.

Blues' football second half was woeful.  Let's give Albion the credit - as dreadful as they were in the first half, they were good in the second half.  Still though, they wouldn't have expected Blues to surrender so meekly.  As the likes of Ferguson and Gardner disappeared, Blues resorted to the long ball.  In the first half Jerome's purposeful running in the channels and the good play of those behind him was a feature of Blues' good performance.  In the second half, with no control of midfield, balls were being lumped at Jerome's head, Helb (who tired anyway) was being bypassed and Blues just gave up possession constantly.

It was no real surprise that Albion made it 3-1.  There was some surprise, however, that it was from a corner when Blues are normally so sound defensively.  It summed up their day.

Nikola Zigic, Matt Derbyshire and Jean Beausejour all came on, but without success.  Zigic looked ok again and won a fair few flick ons, but no one got close enough to him for anything to come of them - Derbyshire seemed to play 30 yards away from him.  Beausejour looked raw too.  We'd heard how he'd attach defenders, but he looked slightly awkward on the ball and tended to stop and look for a pass back inside.  I'm sure he's better than that and it was far from ideal circumstances for his introduction to English football, but it wasn't a very impressive debut.

Blues' second half display got what it deserved, to be honest.  It was dreadful.  It's hard to understand where it came from after the first half.  Albion do need to be given credit - fair play to them - but Blues' regression was startling too.  Players simply seemed to shirk their responsibility.

There's no real need to panic.  Blues will lose games away from home this season to clubs in and around the mid to lower reaches of the table.  This was a good reminder that Blues haven't necessarily moved on from that sort of level yet.  Albion look much less brittle than in previous seasons and weren't bad.  Blues were bad in the second half, but that will happen in games.  That's football.  They were also pretty good for half an hour or so too, so it needs to just be taken on the chin.  The next two home games in the league against Wigan (crap) and Everton (poor at present) represent a good chance for four or six points, and if Blues pick those points up, things will be looking good.

I must give a final mention to a Blues fan sat just along from me, who I shall call 'Touchline Fan'.  Despite being in row GG (pretty far back), this guy genuinely seemed to think that he was in the technical area.  Touchline Fan literally spent 90 minutes shouting things like, "drop deeper Seb, deeper Seb", "push on Stephen", "watch the overlap, Liam" and "work the centre half more Cameron".  Now, I know we all shout things to the players at games, but I've been to a lot of football matches and have never heard anything like it.  Those around me felt the same too - you could tell by how much people were laughing.

Touchline Fan honestly seemed to think that he was stood on the sideline, barking out these orders to the players (on first name terms, of course) and that they could hear him.  My writing about it doesn't do it justice, but even at 3-1 down to a team in Smethwick(doesn't get much more depressing than that), I still had a smile on my face and was still laughing because of Touchline Fan.

Touchline Fan, I salute you.