The once mighty West Bromwich Albion visit St
Mary‘s today, in a rather surprising 5th place in the league, off
the back of a run three successive wins. Surprising because they seem to have
been in financial turmoil ever since dropping out of the Premier League a
couple of seasons ago. Manager Carlos Corboran has developed a pragmatic
playing style regarding the way they sit deep and attempt to hit teams on the
break. Earlier on in the season this would’ve been the perfect way to going
about beating us but we are a lot better now with regards to over-committing when we have the ball. This could well
be a game where the first goal is crucial,so we have course are hoping to
replicate our fast starts against Leeds and Birmingham. West Brom‘s main attacking threats are the wingers Diangana and Phillips
so I expect KWP and Bree to be kept on their toes this afternoon. Our last game against West Brom was in the
Premier League at the Hawthorns when we had Ralph Hasenhuttl as manager and
they had the gravy quaffing expertise of Sam Allardyce. Fat Sam won the day as we were fucking
abysmal and collapsed to a pathetic 3-0 defeat, which was a result that neither
stopped West Brom going down or us staying up.
It’s been a relatively quiet week at St Mary’s and the main decision Russell
Martin has to make is how to replace Jan Bednarek in the starting lineup.
Having seen the way that James Bree slotted into left back rather than moving
everyone else around, I’m kind of expecting a like for like replacement with
Mason Holgate coming in. Hopefully the fact that Holgate’s three starts have
seen us concede nine goals, won’t have too much of a bearing today.
Elsewhere, the Nathan Jones masterclass on how he beat Manchester City on his
own, didn’t secure him the job at Millwall which statistically, I’m sure they
will regret. Afterwards, he said that
statistically, his masterclass was one of the best in Europe in terms of
xPotency and xAggression, and that he could have stayed in Wales and done a podcast
about mining villages, but he wanted to test himself by not marrying a Welsh
girl and leaving to do a masterclass. I
realise that all of these jokes have been done before but in my mind, they are
still amusing.
To today and 2pm brought answers to the questions we were all asking and true
to form, Russell Martin made as few changes as he had to, with Mason Holgate
coming in for the suspended Bednarek and other than that it was unchanged with
James Bree having obviously recovered from the knock that forced him off
against Millwall last week. The headline
news is that Ross Stewart is on the bench.
Come on lads, fast start. Nothing for
the first four minutes other than realising that the formation had changed a
bit and we were playing a kind of 4-4-2 with Charly on the left and Stu on the
right. West Brom had played three-at-the-back
recently in away games but they were 4-4-2 as well so matched up. Whether we surprised them or not with the
formation change, we’ll never know but in the 5th minute, Alcaraz
slid a ball in to Stuart Armstrong who had turned up on the left behind the
full back. His pull back finds Adam
Armstrong who has to score but he hits the keeper and Smallbone smashes the
rebound and it looks like it is cleared off the line… fuck! Oh hang on… we have no VAR but we do have
goal-line tech, one-fucking-nil, get in!!
A difference between the Championship and the Premier League then became
apparent as Smallbone put Adam Armstrong through with a slide rule pass but
it’s given offside by the lino who flagged straight away. Five minutes later, THB missed out midfield
and puts Armstrong through and again it’s given offside by an early flag. Both offsides were close but the lino, who
was best placed to see, thought they were both offside so fair enough and no
drama.
If this had been a Premier League game, that last paragraph might have read:
Smallbone put Adam Armstrong through with a slide rule pass and on he goes,
draws the keeper and slots it past him for 2-0.
We all go “YEEEEEEH-fuck as he’s just put the flag up. Off to Stockleigh Park and it’s clearly a
close one as it’s taking ages whilst the etch-a-sketch draws some lines and
what do you know, it’s offside by fucking miles so why couldn’t the twat have
put his flag up straight away. Action
replay a few minutes later as THB missed out midfield and puts Armstrong
through and again, no flag and he’s in but overruns it and clatters the keeper
who looks like he’s dead. Arma rolls it
into the empty net and the Baggies centre backs kick off and the handbags come
out and once more we’re off to Stockley Park and after ten minutes we establish
that it’s miles offside again and the lino should have flagged, no punches were
thrown and after a check of the monitor, two of their players get yellow cards
and Arma gets one as well, presumably for being pushed in the face. Shambles.
Back in the real world in the Championship and Alcaraz breaks infield from the
left and spreads it wider KWP and he finds Sulemana who helps onto Smallbone
who launches it into space.
Just before half time, we get a bit ragged with Downes getting booked for a
wild attempt to try and regain possession after we’d lost it in our own half
and West Brom wake up a bit in an attacking sense and Jed Wallace, Skate
Bastard gets a cross in and it bounces out to Thomas-Asante, whose effort is
headed wide by Holgate. A warning. Half
time.
It’s been quite comfortable to be honest as we’ve been as good in possession as
usual and West Brom haven’t really threatened.
Our lack of efforts on goal after the 5th minute is
irritating and you feel that West Brom are going to put a bit more together in
the second half.
After ten minutes of holding pattern, Smallbone goes down and the obvious
substitution is to bring on Shea Charles but it’s Ryan Fraser coming on which
means readjustment for Stuart Armstrong and we appear to have gone to our more
regular 433 formation, with Stu and Charly both in the midfield, which seems a
bit unnecessarily risky as we are ahead.
West Brom have been better since half-time and begin look the better side with
powerful Phillips cutting off the left wing and curling one quite a long way
wide of the far post. West Brom are growing though and we are doing the opposite,
not keeping the ball particularly well and seemingly lacking in a bit of
energy.
Shit...
Phillips again picks up the ball on the left and Townsend wins a corner off of Downes. Russell Martin has got three subs lined up to come on but doesn’t want to do it before the corner which ends up back over the far side before being crossed back in by Skate Wallace and Thomas-Asante rises to smash a header against the bar and Bartley walks it into the net from practically on the line. Fuck. Can’t say it hasn’t been coming though
Now the subs can be made with Manning, Adams and Charles coming on for Bree, Sulemana and surprisingly, Flynn Downes. Saints immediately look more energetic and Fraser has a shot blocked on the edge of the box but then it’s panic station as Saints get the defending all wrong as Charles falls over and West Brom break again with Wallace putting a cross over which was superbly headed away by Holgate.
At least we are creating a bit ourselves now and KWP brings it down the right and slides the ball in to Stuart Armstrong who needs to pull it back but doesn’t get his foot around it and it’s easy pickings for the goalkeeper. At the other end, Townsend is allowed to sling in a cross from the left and it’s met by the right back Furlong who easily gets above Ryan Manning before sending a header onto the bar and over. At this point with about fifteen to go, I am more than happy to take a point.
We work the ball out of Fraser on the left and he switches on his right foot and crosses. Stuart Armstrong goes for the header and it flicks off a defender and the left back has followed him and it bounces down to Adam Armstrong at the back post and all he has to do is control and knock it into the net which he does comfortably. 2-1, fucking get in there.
It’s more or less Adam Armstrong‘s last contribution as he’s replaced by Ross Stewart who takes his place on the right wing, with Adams still in the middle. West Brom put a cross into the box which are dealt with by Mason Holgate who was getting better and better as the game goes on. In comes the corner headed away for another corner. In it comes in and everyone is hacking at the ball and it’s about three yards out, Thomas-Asante swings a boot at it and somehow it’s a great save by Bazunu before we hack it away.
The end… get in!! Well that was sketchy as fuck but we got there in the end, immediately putting me in mind of the QPR game earlier on in the season, where we similarly didn’t play particularly well but managed to nick it with her relatively late goal by Adam Armstrong, who once again gave a typical Adam Armstrong performance, not doing very much at all but then popping up with a goal.
Overall, I would say that we got a bit lucky here and a draw would have been a fair result. Russell Martin was brave on 55 minutes when Smallbone got injured, bringing on Ryan Fraser instead of Shea Charles, which left us with the midfield three which included both Alcaraz and Stuart Armstrong, two players not exactly known for their defensive discipline. He wanted to make further changes before West Brom scored and he managed to change it eventually after they equalised and we just about got us over the line thanks to Fraser’s cross, the confusion caused by Stuart Armstrong arriving late in the box and Arma’s finish. Once we got in front, we had our first glimpse of Ross Stewart for 15 minutes, playing a slightly unfamiliar right wing spot but he worked hard and he looks like he’s going to be a right rangy awkward handful when he gets fully fit and establishes a place in the side in his proper position.
In a game with the first goal was always going to be very important, to get it after five minutes was a major bonus but though we pretty much dominated the first half, we didn’t kick on and didn’t work the Baggies goalkeeper at all before half-time. West Brom barely had a touch anywhere near a penalty area but in the second half they were the better side and literally a minute before Armstrong scored, as said, I was quite happily settle in for a point.
What’s the cliché?…. the sign of a good team is one that can play badly and still win? That was kind of us today. Tactically we set up a little bit different today, which I guess was some sort of adaptation needed for the opposition and we basically matched them up. Our more traditional four in midfield pretty much dominated in the first half but Kamaldeen Sulemana had a very listless performance up front and Adam Armstrong as discussed, was his usual. I think the opposition made it the kind of game but it ended up being because they were very solid and didn’t lose their shape at all, even when 1-0 down.
Mason Holgate got named as man of the match by the rather clumsy stadium announcement that happened whilst the game was in progress. Not sure about that because THB was the one organising the defence and he was absolutely flawless. Holgate did however play very well after the opening minute or so. He has an aggressive streak to his defending and gets in there and gets to the ball before the striker. He is also obviously a bit of a wind-up merchant and it is a bit of a lightning rod for the opposition doing stupid things. We should’ve had a penalty in the first half for Holgate’s shirt being virtually ripped off his back. With the two centre backs and the goalkeeper being our best players today, it probably explains quite a lot about the game.
Another side note from today is that Russell Martin picked up his third booking so he will not be on the touchline in our next game against Huddersfield, which happens after the international break. It will be interesting to see whether that has any adverse effect but that’s certainly a game where we need to continue our positive form against one of them or struggling sides in the division.
Up the Fucking Saints
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