| First
of all, before I get to the nitty-gritty, may I congratulate all those
of you who had the sense and foresight to stay at home and either watch
the highlights on the excellent “Football First” on Sky, or as I
wish I had elected to do, watch the match on Teletext, sitting in front
of a roaring open fire. Those of you who did watch the Sky highlights won’t have
realized just how bad Tottenham were, as they actually made them look
average. It didn’t show
the 200+ passes that went astray, players going past defenders but
without the ball, and as we pushed forward in the later stages in the
vain hope of salvaging something out of the game, our own players
getting in each others way! The Producer must have been a Spurs fan!
This match is right down there with the away match at Blackburn
earlier this season, when Tottenham never even remotely tried, but
actually came away with a point. Although
against West Brom they did try (well some of them did); it was just that
they were lacking ambition, and we didn’t have the consolation of a
point.
By
the start of the match the temperatures had fallen to -5°C, and believe
you me, when you’ve got nothing to get excited about in West Bromwich,
that’s bloody cold! Before
the kick-off, the usual large traveling away support was in excellent
voice – how could this fail but to rouse our team?
I wondered, and I’m still wondering now!
West Brom must have been cowering in their boots thinking that
the game had been switched to WHL – had it not been for the bitter
Northern Arctic weather. Even
my half-time Mars Bar went solid!
Despite
the cold, the West Brom fans turned out in force so that they could
witness the team that were going to dominate European football (supposed
to be THFC) for the next five decades, (which will allow me to see out
the rest of my dwindling years, happily).
At 27,510 it was their first sell out of the season.
I wish now, that the crowd had been about 27,507!
My boys would have even happier than me to have been in front of
that fire!
Mike
Riley officiated and it’s got to be said that he is right up there
beside the likes of Rob Styles, and until the 85 minutes of the Pompey
game, Uriah Rennie. His
first bad decision was before the match even started, when he allowed
the match to take place! However,
to be fair to Mr. Riley, on the night, Tottenham were actually worse
than he was!
And
so now, I suppose, I must (begrudgingly) turn my attentions to the
proceedings on the pitch.
Tottenham
actually started the match quite brightly, and LYP (PYL or whatever it
is) made great inroads up the left before setting up JD for a shot which
was well blocked, and that was about as good as it got.
For, we soon fell into the groove that we ground out against
Blackburn, as MD and AG passed the ball between them, and it was while
we were pussy-footying about, that after a two missed tackles and a
(poor) clearance that hit MC, the rebound fell very kindly to Kanu of
all people. He couldn’t
believe his good fortune as he went round Robbo (with a bit more skill
that I had him down for) to open the scoring.
No problem we thought, we’ve recently had to give sides a goal
start in order to make us play, and so a comeback was surely about to
happen again. My 3-1 bet
was still looking good I thought, although I would rather that we’d
scored 2 or 3 before they got one!
Efforts
at goal were at a premium for the rest of the half; and indeed for the
rest of the game, as you will see later from the statistics that I so
carefully compiled. The only other pathetic attempts at goal in the first period
fell to Nathan Ellington and JD, both of which my wife would have saved!
Half
time came as a welcome cessation (albeit temporary) to the events on the
pitch, and I turned my attention to my Mars Bar (even that let me
down!!) and the thought that MJ would turn things round in the second
half!
15
jaw breaking minutes later, TH, again, started off the half in a fairly
bright manner for all of 7 minutes, which is just how long it took for
us to gift our hosts a second goal.
An abysmal attempted pass by AG went straight to Kanu, who ran on
towards our goal and fired an unstoppable shot past ENO, for his second
(sad to say, excellently taken) goal of the night, which I think it is
fair to say, silenced the away support totally.
I
know this is Christmas, but we presented WBA with two goals, and gift
wrapped at that! We stuffed
ourselves like the proverbial turkey, which couldn’t have had a much
worse time than we did! WBA
must have thought that all their Christmases had come at once.
Even the locals began to realize that THFC were Santa in
disguise, as they began to get excited and make a bit of noise.
I think that they were singing, but I couldn’t understand their
accents!!
Keane
was brought on (for WR) and thankfully Mido (GR) too, in an attempt to
get back into the game, but although we played with more urgency, and
Mido made the WBA defenders work for the first time all evening, at the
end of the day, we flattered to deceive.
Up until the introduction of “Egypt’s number 9” (I bet he
was happy to take his insulated sub’s suit off) we actually succeeded
in making the WBA defence look good !! Tomasz Kuszczak in the home goal won’t have an easier
match; when he was occasionally called into action, if that is the right
word, he made the sort of “save” that, never mind my wife, I would
have made, keeping out further weak efforts from JD (twice) and Mido!
We’ve
not really played well in recent games and we’ve possibly enjoyed a
bit more luck than we normally get, but here we got nothing.
Just the opposite in fact, as we did the giving!
ED was definitely pulled back by Ronnie Wallwork right on the
edge of their area, only for the referee to wave play on.
I could see that he was being pulled back from the other end of
the ground, and TV supported my ageing eyesight, so why didn’t Mike
Riley from only 10 yards away? JD
appeared to have been brought down in the area, but I wasn’t too sure
about that one – perhaps I’d give the benefit of the doubt to the
defending side. But other
than those four shots by JD and Mido, we had nothing to offer.
MB came on late into the game and although he tried, as he always
does, he couldn’t influence affairs on the pitch.
No disrespect to MB, but why wasn’t PM available (he must now
be bald after tearing hid hair out in frustration of not getting an
opportunity to play), and/or AL come to that?
In
many of our games this year, we have enjoyed the lion’s share of
possession, and we passed the ball around very well.
Against WBA, we still had the majority of the possession, but as
usual we didn’t put it to good use, as our passing game deserted us,
as we gave the ball away far too often and far too cheaply.
TH were not good, but spare a thought for WBA, who took full
advantage of their Christmas presents, but other than that they could
only manage two other (pathetic) shots (Darren Carter had the other),
(which were not blocked) in the entire match.
They created absolutely nothing, but then again, perhaps they
didn’t need to! And just
to rub salt into the gaping wound of an ex-Gooner scoring the goals, he
was taken off with about 5 minutes to go, only to be replaced by Kevin
Campbell!!!
I
can’t think of any positives at all that we can take from this match,
on the contrary, just in case you hadn’t noticed.
What is really worrying is that unless we get a suitable
replacement for Mido in the transfer window, GR is all we’ve got, and
at the moment he doesn’t look up to it.
Also, despite coping without him earlier in the season, we
don’t look to have adequate cover for Ledders.
Apparently,
MJ said in a post interview that we deserved a point from the game, and
my first reaction was that he’d been watching a different game to me,
but then, I thought about it, and perversely, perhaps he was right.
We had more possession, more goal attempts (just) and just about
created more than WBA, whose sole ambition seemed to be to stop TH from
playing, and undoubtedly they succeeded in doing this.
The only difference between the two sides, being our Christmas
pressies ! If we have any pretensions of playing in Europe in either
competition, then we should be beating teams like WBA and Blackburn,
home and away – easily. We
didn’t really try to win either game and we managed to pick up one
point from both games, when with a little more imagination we may
possibly have won one. Even
if we lost the other, at least we would have two more points than we
have now.
Possibly
too many changes were made, from the Birmingham game; one was enforced
(AG for Ledders), and some were tactical, e.g. to give GR a run out, and
to see how he coped, when, worryingly, we lose Mido for a month, and WR
for AL. JD was also in for
RK but he looked a bit rusty and did nothing to impress MJ, or me!
On
the way down to the Newcastle game two days later, where we were
different again, (see next report) I was reading an old edition of
MEHSTG (how sad can you get?) and in the match report for Bolton away,
on 1/2/05 (I was there too. I
pick all the good ones!), Burton Coggles starts his report thus: -
“A dodgy decision (no change there) and a couple of clangers in
defence condemned Spurs to a loss here that they should not have
suffered….”
Sound
familiar?
Match
Stats.
|
WBA
|
|
THFC
|
|
44%
|
POSSESSION
|
56%
|
|
4
|
SHOTS
ON TARGET
|
4
|
|
0
|
SHOTS
OFF TARGET
|
1
|
|
4
|
SHOTS
BLOCKED
|
4
|
|
4
|
CORNERS
|
4
|
|
16
|
FOULS
CONCEDED
|
14
|
|
1
|
OFFSIDES
|
5
|
|
0
|
YELLOW
CARDS
|
0
|
|
0
|
RED
CARDS
|
0
|
PR
– Had a fairly quiet game. Neither goal was down to him, and he also
had two easy saves to make.
6/10
PYL
– Did a couple of good things in attack
early on, but I still can’t come to terms with a left back that
can’t/won’t kick with his left. 5/10
AG
– Looked off the pace, unsurprisingly. Involved in the first goal and the second goal down to his
error. 4/10
MD
– Missed Ledders.
Started very shakily with AG beside him, but got stronger, and
probably held us together. Made
some telling tackles; will be a strong contender of the man of the
season. Never mind Anton Ferdinand for England…………7/10
PS
– Mr Consistency; never startlingly
good, never awful. Always
available anywhere down the right, and rarely wasted the ball, but never
looked threatening. 6/10
JJ
– Did he really play?
Never got into the game. 3/10
WR
– Ditto JJ. Looks out of
his depth, yet he did it for Palace in Premiership, last season.
Is it just a lack of fitness? For some bizarre reason, he started
off on the left along with that other right-footer, PYL/LYP – Why? 3/10
MC
– Played well, but far too deep to link with JD and GR.
As always, rarely wasted the ball, and always available, but no
telling passes in our opponents final third. 7/10
ED
– Tried as ever, but it didn’t get him anywhere.
Unusually he gave the ball away too much and he faded in the
second half. He even failed
to get himself booked. 5/10
JD
– Didn’t get much service, and lacked cohesion with GR.
Had three efforts on target, but they didn’t trouble the
keeper. 5/10
GR
– Ditto JD but without the goal attempts. Didn’t win enough in the air, seems a bit lightweight, and IS
too slow. 4/10
Subs:
- Mido (for GR) More urgency when he came on, and won the ball in the
air. Tried, but it didn’t run for him. He also managed a (poor)
shot on target. 6/10
RK – Lifted things
when he came on, but still didn’t trouble the WBA defence. 5/10
MB – Not on long
enough to make much difference.
MEHSTG TOP MAN: - There weren’t many nominations, but Michael Carrick
just shaded it from Michael Dawson.
By
the way, I haven’t forgotten to report on the toilets at the
Hawthorns, and I know you’re desperate to know.
They were actually quite good; well the Gents were anyway.
(I couldn’t go into the Ladies because a Restraining Order has
been served upon me, preventing me from going into Ladies’ toilets,
because I kept leaving the seat up.)
We had the usual metal trough, but this wasn’t overflowing at
the end of the match, so I can live with this.
But the real highlight was that we had hot (and cold) running
water, and hot-air hand driers. Bearing in mind the freezing weather, these were an absolute
godsend!
Keep
in touch with yourselves,
Petefromleek
PS
– Hello to Macc Lads, Martin (?) and Ned
|
West Bromwich Albion
(Away)
