Back on the road again. Back with the same old faces as the end of last season, and the first time I’d been the company of more than one of them since our Reduced Durham Branch annual camping extravaganza in the lakes on the first weekend of the World Cup. There we’d bumped into Andrew and his marras from Shields, and we’d turned the pub from a potentially suicidal post-USA situation into a bouncing Gary Rowell world, like you do. Andrew’s lads George and Tom (on his first season ticket by now) should be a little further down the Red and White road by now, and there was talk of a repeat visit to Keswick next May. Well, Durham will be there.

No stops on the way down meant that we hit Lichfield well before eleven, so we strolled, rather than jogged, to the Queen’s and the pork scratchings, then picked up the pork pies we’d sampled outside Walter Smith’s butcher shop. Top pies, if a bit more peppery than their North Eastern brethren.

At the Hawthorns, they’d thoughtfully laid a laminate floor in the concourse – there will be a local joiner rubbing his hands in anticipation of a repeat installation next summer, unless it proves to be the most durable laminate floor in the history of laminate floors. Brave decision to put that down.

As expected, there were minimal changes to the team, with Riveros in for Catts and Da Silva in for Mensah.

Mignolet
Onouah Da Silva Bramble Richardson
Almo Hendo Riveros Steed
Bent Campbell.

West Brom play the sort of open, expansive game that exposes their femmer heart, and that means that they’ll get a few tonkings like that they received at Chelsea. Not from us, however. Howard Webb’s much publicised “coaching” sessions with our players seemed to have got the message across on how not to get booked, as we didn’t make a tackle for the first half hour. By then, the Baggies had dragged two shots past Mignolet’s right hand post and put a header over when the target should have been hit. We won a string of free kicks in shooting range, but put them all just over or into the wall, while Almo started brightly but faded quite early. Riveros seemed to be bypassed by the game for most of the half, and while there was plenty of endeavour from both sides, a neutral would probably have been impressed by the work-rate but baffled by the lack of chances, and the poor finishing applied to those that did come along.

We could be forgiven for thinking that we’d get better after the break, and we did. Gradually, the midfield, particularly down the left with Richo finding Steed regularly, strung a few passes together, and WBA repeated their trick of giving away free kicks near the edge of the box. Hendo whipped one in from the right, and Bent got there a fraction too soon, meaning that he got under his header and it flew over the bar. At the other end, Mignolet did well on a couple of occasions to deal with crosses, but it was us who looked like getting the goal as we dominated the middle period of the half. Steed and Almo made way for Bolo and Wellbeck, and the Dutchman showed enough control of the game to merit a start next week, as he took his time to find passes. Da Silva was booked for pulling his man down after, as he had done most of the afternoon, being really slow off the mark. However, with ten or so to go, we opened up down the middle, they rolled the ball through the gap, and their new boy, Somethingwingie, scored a debut goal. The national press will probably blame it on Bramble, like they unjustly did last week. We flung on Waghorn for Riveros, and his first touch was a near post volley from a corner that flew a yard wide. Richo hit a dipping shot that was tipped over, and Benty’s first touch took the ball too far ahead of him in the box as we continued to press.

Yet again, a team we should be taking points from (and no disrespect to West Brom in saying that) took the points from us due to lack of concentration. Personally, I’m getting tired of spending my money to watch this sort of thing happen, and it’s something that Bruce must address and bloody quick. Bent, Captain for the day, won loads of headers, but Campbell chose to have his worst day in the Red and White as he steadfastly failed to get on the end of any knock-down or flick on. The central midfield was non-existent in the second half until Zenden appeared and pulled the strings from the left, while the defence looked on the edge despite keeping the visitors at bay on all but one occasion. A disappointing day for Almo on the right, and Riveros in the middle, while Steed did OK for most of the time he was on the field. With the players we have, we should be producing much better stuff that we did today, and it’s hard to see why – the thing about football is nothing’s transparent, the trick of the trade is to make it apparent. If I could work out the reason, I’d be a manager.

Glass half empty – a poor start to the season, a disappointing result and a worrying performance. And I’m working on a project with a West Brom fan at the moment.

Glass half full – we could be Wigan, and we won’t have Adrian Chiles sniggering at us on MOTD2 on Sunday night.

Man of the Match – Bent, but all for nothing

Keep The Faith

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