West Bromwich Albion 0 - Stoke City 1

Jenny Hall:

Sorry to say that exactly what I was afraid of happened. We meddle at Swansea to leave players "fresh" for Stoke, then meddle even more today and surprise surprise we throw another 3 points away. The game was so predictable it wasn't true - has the manager never seen our previous Stoke games?

Absolutely dire plus an even worse ref.

Paul Gainham:

We saved our worst performance of the season for the worst team in the PL today. Biggest issues was a complete lack of width without Ridgewell and Jones we had no wide outlet and the ball kept going infield where Stoke were waiting.

No need to panic but it's bloody hard to lose against that shower at home.

Just hope again that Clarke learns something from it.

WBAlex:

I think Albion lost today mainly due to the formation and the starting eleven chosen. In particular, the midfield created next to no openings, by their high standards. In the first half when in possession, they looked clueless. Waiting to spot an opening and then passing it sideways or backwards, when nobody was making a run into space. The fluency of the midfield we saw at Sunderland was absent. This might have been the fault of the off the ball movement, (the lack of), or because Stoke played too deep and prevented Albion playing their quick counter football. However, the absence of Morrison did not help. Gera, who was a major part of the Sunderland victory, was one of the better performers, but he is less influential in a wider position. Rosenberg struggled to cope with the tight marking, and was not able to get himself into dangerous positions or close to goal.

As the game wore on, there was a growing predictability about the outcome, and sure enough, Whitehead found himself in space to meet a cross in front of goal, and the Stokies had done it again, to send the Staffordshire hordes into wind-up overdrive.

The introduction of Odemwingie as sub added some threat down the left, and Albion got a couple of dangerous crosses in from the left late on, but it was mainly 3 or 4 Albion players trying to pick their way through 8 or 9 red and white striped shirts in the Stoke penalty area.

The hoodoo continues.

Derby Bernie:

We've had the breaks recently (goalie errors and dubious penalty at Sunderland) but nothing went our way today. Probably didn't deserve anything though because our team selection played right into the hands of those bully boys from Stoke. Why try and play our way down the middle against the massed ranks of giants?

The manager has got most things right this season, so lets hope this was just a minor blip. We were in need of pace and skill down the wings to spread the play and get around the clutter in the middle. So why no Odemwingie from the start? To compound this oversight (except in desperation towards the end) our full backs were almost totally devoid of any attacking intent.

Our best football this season has been achieved by having a play-maker (Morrison or Gera) in the space behind Long. Both of these play-makers has the vision and ability pick out the kind of killer pass that was so lacking against Stoke. So why was Morrison left on the bench and Gera played out wide?

I fear that the reason was just to give Rosenberg a game. I'm not sure what position he played but it certainly was not as a much-needed play-maker.