West Brom went into the third Premier League game of the season after two spirited performances resulting in narrow defeats to last season’s top two teams. Both included a goal from our new number nine, Shane long.
The Baggies did manage to get back to winning ways in the League Cup on Tuesday night with a comfortable 4-1 win at Bournemouth. These performances meant that I was in a fairly confident frame of mind for the rest of the season, convinced that we could start picking up points soon, even if our next game was against Stoke. I don’t think I need to mention our record against our latest opponents.
Much of the build up to the game was speculation as to what the Baggies’ starting XI would be. Jerome Thomas played 45 minutes mid-week and scored a goal, putting him in contention for a starting role. Graham Dorrans was also impressive against the League One outfit, but Hodgson has said that the midfielder was still a few weeks away from his best.
The teams
The Baggies started with an unchanged starting line-up for the third successive Premier League match, with the unfortunate news of an injury to Odemwingie forcing him out of action.
WBA: Foster, Shorey, Olsson, Tamas, Reid, Morrisson, Mulumbu, Sharner, Brunt, Tchoyi, Long.
Subs: Fulop, Cox, Dorrans, Fortune, Thomas, Jones, Dawson.
Stoke: Begovic, Woodgate, Huth, Shawcross, Etherington, Pennant, Wilson, Whitehead, Whelan, Walters, Jones.
Subs: Sorensen, Upson, Collins, Shotton, Wilkinson, Pugh, Soares.
The first half
The opening minutes started with both teams creating opportunities to cross the ball and Shane Long chasing everything, as we are becoming accustomed to seeing. However, after the first few minutes it was the Baggies who looked the more threatening. Our first chance came when Tchoyi latched onto a long ball from Reid and turned his opponent inside out before crossing for Brunt, whose header was off target.
Stoke's long balls and crossing looked dangerous but sharp goalkeeping from Foster kept out an advancing Walters after a neat flick on from Jones early on. This pattern continued every time Stoke got hold of possession, but the West Brom defence were equal to it.
After ten minutes Albion were winning the midfield with Scharner and Mulumbu looking sharp, and Brunt playing some tidy passes. It was Brunt who fed Tchoyi down the left flank to create arguably Albion’s best chance of the game. The Cameroonian crossed early and found the head of Long on the penalty spot, but his difficult header was saved well by Begovic.
A throw deep inside Stoke’s half resulted in a Shorey cross, half cleared by Woodgate to Mulumbu. He took a swing at a volley but his effort was always rising over the bar.
Stoke won a couple of free kicks after half an hour which Pennant crossed but both were dealt with well by our backline.
The visitors started to come back into the game a little more towards the end of the first half, stopping Albion’s creativity and they had the last chance of the half with Pennant heading over from Etherington’s cross.
After the break
Stoke had the first chance of the second half, thanks to a dreadful free kick from Tamas inside his own half. Tamas played a long drilled pass to nobody, Stoke pounced and came forward with pace. Luckily for Tamas, Glenn Whelan skewed his shot wide from just inside the box.
The Baggies faithful were starting to get a little frustrated as West Brom gave away possession at crucial points and their forward line found themselves offside. The longer the game stayed 0-0, the more it suited Stoke's style of play.
Still the Baggies plugged away and they created a decent chance for Tchoyi on the edge of the area after a good pass from Shorey. Tchoyi's curling effort came close, but he had other options with Scharner unmarked to his right.
Tchoyi had another effort a moment later, this time from further out. This shot again failed to test Begovic when a goal looked likely.
Just as the game was beginning to open up a little again for Albion there was a long break for injury and substitutions. Jerome Thomas came on as expected, but Brunt wouldn’t have been my first choice to be replaced, with Morrison looking much more ineffective.
Once the game was back underway Reid crossed for Scharner’s neat header down to Tchoyi on the edge of the area. His venomous first-time volley was just inches wide of Begovic’s right hand post. That was Tchoyi’s last kick of the game as he was replaced by scorer of two mid-week goals, Fortune.
Dorrans finally came off the bench to replace the disappointing Morrison with just over 10 minutes to go, much to delight of The Hawthorns crowd who want to see the Scot reach his player of the season form once again. His first duty was three back-to-back corners as the home side pushed for a winner. However, it wasn’t to be.
With less than a minute left of normal time, our worst fears were realised when Tamas and Foster failed to deal with a hopeful long ball from Walters and Shotton nicked the ball into an empty net. A sickening blow. How do they manage it every time?
On reflection
We never beat Stoke, and they love reminding us of that, so did any of us really expect a result this time around? Any believing Baggie could have been forgiven for thinking we could have finally beaten our bogey team after the positive performances over the last few weeks. A quick look at the stats leaves me bamboozled as to how Stoke came away with a win too, with our thirteen attempts to their five. That would suggest we dominated the game, which we did for spells. However, we were not at our best, with several players putting in below-par performances. The likes of Tamas and Morrisson needed to up their game and new boy Long was kept fairly quiet today. Also, our substitutes were ineffective and made little impact from the bench. The truth is, neither team deserved the win and I’m glad we don’t play football stopping Stoke every week because today’s match was dull in places and left many of us with a feeling of sickening anger.
Our man of the match was hard to pick for the wrong reasons, but Olsson was solid at the back throughout.
That leaves us with no points from three game,which we always knew would be tough. However, with games against Norwich, Swansea and Fulham up next, surely September will be a more fruitful month.
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