Sifu

Fantastic news that :)

There's this: Haha! There's goals in the fixture but strangely enough it's not often a high quality game. For some irritating reason, we have a habit of letting some hitherto unknown WBA player become a superstar when we roll up. Just had a look there, the last time we won at the Hawthorns was the relegation season and yep, it was a high scoring game! We won 3-2.

Thought the plaque was better than the individual Intertoto trophies: http://www.intertoto-cup.org/images/intertotocup_sml.gif

I honestly don't think Perch has the capabilities to be an effective CB. If the opposition is more known to attack along the ground (and through the middle), then fair enough, Perch might be able to do some sort of job at CB but really though, Perch is more prone to mistakes in this position imo. The way I see it is that there's a lot more responsibility involved at CB, that is, the player needs to be able to deal with crosses, set pieces or even high balls and be able to read the game effectively. I think that Perch's main weakness is dealing with crosses, we saw that against Norwich in December - his anticipation in tracking the intended target is rather slow imo. I know our defensive situation isn't so great atm especially with Williamson lacking in confidence and form but, like it or not, Willo is our best option there. Perch's best role is DM, the anchorman. He's shown that he's able to break up the opposition's play effectively and has known to play it simple (a good thing btw) when deployed in such a position. Think he prefers playing there too. As it stands though, for me, Perch's roles for us should be to cover DM and the fullback positions. Playing him at CB should be the absolute last resort imho.

Good signs

From what I gather, the story is pretty much this: When Shola came on, he told Cabaye to push up into a position just behind Ba, ie. it was instructions to attack. When Gosling came on though, Cabaye was then pretty much told to hang back and let Gosling play in an advanced role. Yohan was understandably unimpressed. Nothing major to worry about imo.

Moved up to 128th place. My top 100 dream is still on (haha).

He was a lot better today than his recent outings imo. Wasn't his best game by any means but he was definitely a lot more influential today than against Arsenal (especially in an attacking sense), some nice passes here and there - has to be said though, we haven't seen that Cabaye for a while.

Can't be said enough tbh.

Magedia in full force I see.

Indeed, anything can happen but as it stands, I still have faith in the man. Of course, these past few months have been s****, no-one can deny that and criticism has rightly come Pardew's way but for me, there's still those little signs that we can adapt our play to a passing one. Pardew just needs to man up, basically (though that's easier said than done I suppose......).

I wouldn't go that far, mate. At worst, he'll probably gain a reputation akin to Roeder but a reputation like Souness/Allardyce's? Can't see it.

Well, overall that was very unconvincing from Pardew. He did set us up right for the first half. Thought we played some wonderful stuff along the deck, it really was great to see us keeping possession the way we did and not allowing Norwich a sniff of the ball. We took our foot off the pedal after we scored imo but overall, our first half showing was decent. The second half however was terrible (how many times have we said that recently?), we were basically set up to defend the 1-0 lead. We were pretty much camped inside our own half for most of the second half which invited pressure from Norwich. It was pretty much a nervous affair throughout that half and our reluctance to attack, our inability to keep possession were worrying things to see. You could put that down to a lack of confidence from the players but the manager is there to motivate and inspire you so whatever Pardew said at half time was probably the catalyst for such an abysmal second half performance. I'm not saying that I know what Pardew's exact teamtalk was, it's just that it's not the first time a decent first half has been eclipsed by a crappy second half. Btw, it has to be said that today was another example of Pardew being able to adopt a pass and play style which (again) is a really encouraging thing to see. But at the same time, it is also becoming more apparent these days that he really wants to play it safe after we score a goal. Needs to grow some balls and give the players license to attack/continue on from their first half play.

Which game was your loss? Blackburn away in the league cup. A draw after 90 minutes I suppose though That is a good record you've got there, it has to be said. Nice

Fantastic finish from the lad. Quite a lot of class movement from him today. Needless to say, as long as he gets the appropriate service from the players around him, then he'll be a massive asset.

WBA have been bit of a bogey team for us in recent times, when was the last time we won at the Hawthorns?

Which game was your loss?

What is this wizardry?!

It'll depend on the Simpson situation and whether or not we sign a new LB. That Journal article a couple of days ago seemed to suggest that we were looking to move Santon to RB with a new signing (supposedly Pieters) starting at LB.

Yeah, we probably do miss Saylor in this respect (a leader on the pitch). For me, Saylor is a player who is so determined for the cause that he would have no problem putting his body on the line (as in, he would go into a 50/50 tackle and he wouldn't shy away from challenges and all that). So could it be that we're actually missing Saylor's "Super-Geordie" mentality?

His best game in a black and white shirt for me. Fantastic performance today, he was pretty much everywhere - he won the ball back so well and played it so simple. He was probably the starting point of all our attacks today. Well done Perchy.

I think a major issue was Williamson's f*** up. After that, Krul seemed reluctant to play it to the defence for a while. After a couple more attempts that ended up just going back to him again he just started frustratedly telling them to shift higher up the pitch and then he'd launch it. There probably is something in this actually. After Williamson's mistake, you could tell that alarm bells started ringing in Krul's mind. Tim just wouldn't pass it out to the defence even when they offered themselves to receive the ball short. I think there's a lack of confidence there from our defenders (Williamson and Simpson mainly) and Krul. Have to work on that.

A very unconvincing win. We started off well and did play some good stuff but then we tailed off badly. Norwich could have easily nicked a goal in the second half if they didn't have Morisson upfront on his own (had Holt started, the outcome of this game could have arguably been different). We were definitely second best in the second half seeing as we were pretty much camped inside our own area inviting pressure after pressure. I thought that we panicked for large parts of the game and this was obvious by the number of mis-placed passes and clearances we made. We should have gone at them more in the first half (and indeed the second half), that second goal would have been a nice breather but nah, we had to play it the hard way and sit back and defend the 1-0 lead. In the end though, it's still a win and it is three valuable points but we can't ignore the worrying signs.

Sky reckon 4-3-1-2. Not bad actually.

I don't mind the line up as such, I'm just having reservations about the system we're presumably adopting.