West Bromwich Albion 0 - Swansea City 2

Summary:

Is it too early to start talking about relegation battles? Perhaps, but that's not stopping some supporters and with one point from three games and no goals scored yet it's not hard to see why.

Nicolas Anelka returned to training on Thursday and was recalled to the starting lineup alongside Shane Long and Scott Sinclair, and the Frenchman was probably one of Albion's best players - although he wasn't up against much competition apart from the lively Sinclair. Boaz Myhill was named in goal after sitting out Tuesday's cup game on the bench while James Morrison was preferred to Graham Dorrans in midfield.

In many ways, Albion's first half performance was markedly improved from the opening game against Southampton, and they produced one shot on target and five off - but the scoreline didn't reflect that because on 26 minutes Swansea attacked down the right and after putting the ball backwards and forwards across the goal it fell to Ben Davies to volley home.

Clarke replaced Morrison with Dorrans at half time and then made a double swap with Tuesday's hero Saido Berahino replacing Sinclair and Markus Rosenberg replacing Claudio Yacob, but within eight minutes Swansea had doubled their lead through Pablo Hernandez and another chorus of boos greeted the final whistle. Albion now sit at the bottom of the table alongside Sunderland, who they face in their next home game.

ShaftesburyBaggie:

Please please sack Clarke now. Before it is too late. Some of us have been predicting that this season would start like this since last December when things started going wrong.

I think we can say that even after three games that the table doesn't lie. We look by far the worst side in the premier league at present with little chance of anything changing unless drastic steps are taken.

John Hipkiss:

I know it's only September and we are only three games in but I think we are in for a long hard season and will be in a relegation battle.

No goals barely a shot on target in those three games, no Foster for three months, not looking good.

Also Steve Clark needs to change the team sooner when it's not working, what's the point of waiting till 75 mins?

Colin Harris:

For me, Man of the match Nicolas Anelka.

The team has no pace, tempo, shape, cohesion, direction etc., etc. to it.

We are currently propping the division up.

We face a major challenge to retain our status in this league.

No passion, commitment, desire, enterprise, ambition, energy, sparkle and a general lethargy to our performance today.

And Long was more like Le Sulk, than "Le Sulk" today.

Chris is tweeting that only one Board member was at the match today, the others were at the training ground sorting out transfer deals, plural.

So, lets not panic just yet and wait to see what the next 24 or so hours produce. If at the end of that nothing happens, then you can panic.

BomberNev:

Our form has been bad since January and we have all the ingredients for a tough season ahead.

Today we were poor all over the park. Myhill did not command the box which is a concern. I would bring in Daniels for the next game. Ridgewell was hopeless bring on Popov. Sinclair did not play wide enough for me. He should have been where Ridgewell was. Anelka looked better but Long was not at the races. Jacob had a good game why he came off god knows! Clarke's substitutions are bizarre at the best of times.

The Fulham and Sunderland games will be crucial if you then look at the October games with arsenal etc. Clarke could be sacked by the end of September.

Let's hope we get some good additions to the squad Monday.

Boing boing

Paul Gainham:

Ok so a tad dramatic but this was the first game I have seen live and my overriding emotion on leaving was one of real anger.

3 reasons not to be cheerful

1. 3 games played, no goals, no obvious sign of where the goals are going to come from. Not a single shot that Vorm had to save today. At Home? Enough said.
2. 3 games in and we looked like a team that had played 33 games - no spark, no tempo, nothing.
3. Clarke remains utterly clueless - playing Long wide right, again enough said.

I was maybe being generous saying that he will be gone by November - I hope that all of those who support Clarke can now see his limitations - 3 games into a new season, plus all of the pre-season games and we look like a disjointed shambles - I will remind you that ALL he has to do is coach the team, that's it and he is making a bloody pigs ear of it as he has done since he took control of 'Hodgsons team.' You can see the players look confused and disinterested - compare and contrast our lacklustre performance today against Swansea, a team of players who you can see enjoy playing under Laudrup.

I also re-iterate my belief that Peace is losing faith in him and hence there won't be any big name signings which will result in stranded assets when he does eventually fire him, which I now believe will probably be early October at this rate.

Somebody said today that most of the board members were away from the game, I bet at least one of them is working on the replacement for Clarke.

I really did not think the crap we saw from November 2012 onwards (remember the 4-0 away defeat at Norwich?) could get any worse but what I saw today tells me I was naive to think that. It HAS got worse, much worse and there is only one way this team is heading unless Peace takes action early.

Bringing in new talent with Clarke at the helm is akin to replacing members of the Titanic's band because it was slightly out of tune.

Oh and Just a reminder, Derby got 11 points in total in the season they went down and they took one point from their first 3 games but also scored 3

Player Marks

• Myhill 6 Nothing he could do with the two goals, looked assured, did not have much to do other than get the ball out of the net twice
• Jones 5 Given the run around too often, beyond me how he got MOM
• Ridgewell 2 Utterly useless
• McCauley 6 OK, great saving tackle on Routledge in 2nd Half
• Olsson 6 Did OK against Michu and Bony
• Mulumbu 7 MOM for me, the only player who looked like he had the fight in him
• Yacob 4 I said this guy was slow and ponderous last season and today he was both
• Morrison 5 Went off at HT, not that effective before that
• Sinclair 5 Looks a capable player but started to drift too centrally for my liking. Not that effective today
• Long 4 Looked like a championship striker again and why oh why did Clarke push him out wide right?
• Anelka 5 Bit of a curates egg. Good touches at times but also slow in possession. Had one real chance which he should have buried.

Subs

• Dorrans 4 Oh dear, I used to like him but he was not in it today
• Rosenberg N/A Too late for a true mark but looked like the Rosenberg of old. Enough said
• Berahino N/A Looked willing and eager, not sure if this guy is up to PL standards though.

Another reason why Clarke has to go. You would imagine if you bring somebody like Anelka into the team you have a clear idea on how you will fit him into a 'system.' But no Clarke just does what he has does since he took over Hodgson's reins, he fudges it. At times today we were 4-4-2 with Long playing alongside Anelka which will never work and then 4-2-3-1 with Long playing wide right!!

Clearly we have not replaced Lukaku ( i would hope Odem is replaced by Sinclair) which is the boards 'problem' but not being clear about how to organise your team to get the best out of them lies fairly and squarely at the feet of Clarke.

Pete Cottrell:

For 10 minutes I thought that there may have been an improvement since the Southampton match, but I was to be sorely disappointed. Deservedly booed off at the end by the few who had stayed to the end: at the final whistle I had no one within 10 metres of me, which is how most of the Swansea players must have felt all afternoon. Whenever an Albion player had the ball there were two or three players immediately snapping round, but Swansea seemed to be able to pass to totally unmarked players whenever they wanted to. Another similar failing was that Albion continually waited for the ball to reach them, giving the opposition time to steal it off their feet, whereas Swansea made an effort actually to meet the ball. Long, Dorrans and Sinclair were the worst offenders.

The difference from last week is that Southampton were also poor (although superior to the Albion) but Swansea were far better and should now be getting a bollocking for only managing to score two goals. To be fair, Olsson and McAuley both came out with some excellent tackles and interceptions, but their distribution and vision was woeful. As an example, Ridgewell (who was rubbish throughout) took a free-kick one yard into the Albion half, and as Anelka, Long and Sinclair ran forward, he passed it back to Olsson, who passed to McAuley, and between them it took 7 passes to leave the Albion half. Another time (though not from a free-kick) I counted 11 passes before it was booted straight to a Swansea player on the edge of his own box. Similarly, Yacob and Mulumbu both looked good on the ball (apart from Yussuf's usual wayward passing) but their overall effectiveness can be measured by the fact that Swansea ran the midfield for nearly all of the match.

Marks (for what they are worth):

• Myhill 6. Untested, really.
• Jones 6. Just about MoM. Not his fault that when he made (sometimes useful) forays into the opposition half, it left acres of space behind him.
• Olsson 5. Some good defensive work, but poor distribution, vision and captaincy.
• McAuley 6. See Olsson, without docking a point for poor leadership.
• Ridgewell 4. Must learn that the players not wearing stripes are the opposition.
• Morrison 4. Missed one of the only two real chances that the Albion had and otherwise ineffective.
• Mulumbu 5. See above.
• Yacob 5. See above.
• Sinclair 4. You can see why Man City don't want him. Scared to take on the opposition, which is not good in a winger.
• Long 3. Lazy, first touch terrible, didn't look interested.
• Anelka 5. Some decent flashes. Missed the "other" chance. Doesn't look fit.

Subs.

• Dorrans 4. Even worse than Morrison (whom he replaced)
• Rosenberg 4. Why persevere?
• Berahino 5. Ran about a lot, but didn't have chance to show what he could (or couldn't) do.

Clarke 3. The team look un(der)prepared, unmotivated, uninterested, uninspired and shapeless. The manager has to take some responsibility for this, surely?

So. Bottom of the league; one of only two clubs not to have scored (the other being Hartlepool); and by the next match they will have gone six months without a home league win. Can anyone see a light at the end of this particular tunnel?

Brendan Clegg:

Like everyone else i'm worried for us with the squad we currently have.

However, the margins for survival and comfortable campaign are pretty tight.

First half especially we were so much better than against Southampton and Swansea are a better side.

But those margins - last year we had enough to beat bothnsides at home in the Summer they both spent heavily to improve and although you can argue quite fairly that their improvement relative to spending isnt all that great, they have improved enough to overtake us which is all that matters.

Did Bony look a 12 million quid footballer today? I wouldn't want it to be my money.

Did Wamyama look a 12 million holding midfielder last home game? Not that level, but he did enough to keep us away from hurting them.

We're only a couple of decent players away from being comfortable but we're leaving it late to get them which increases the stakes for us.

I can sympathise with Clarke although i totally agree with others that he isn't beyond criticism. Last year he kept playing Brunt through the middle when we had better natural footballers to go there. This year, when crying out for natural width Brunt cant get a game from the bench while we play Long and Dorrans out of position, to the detriment of them both.

That said, with what we have i dont think there could have been too many arguments with the starting 11.

I thought we shaded the first half and spent long periods penning them in around their box but lacking the guile to open them up or the balls to have a shot when there was a half-opening. The kind of buildup play that suits Gera.

We needed to score when we were on top, didnt and then they took advantage. We rallied after their goal and a wobble and had another go, but didn't take our half chances.

The loss at the break of mozza was significant. He'd been patient, safe but busy - i read a stat that his pass completion was 100% in the first half. Dorrans couldn't hit the same level and was too eagar to create, often giving the ball away too early and cheaply. We ran out of ideas and as we pushed on it was inevitable that Swansea would score more. We never looked like getting back into the game.

What next? A striker and another wide player hopefully.

I think we need to go back to 1 up front with 5 in the middle, be it Long to work his socks off before swapping with Anelka or Anelka to give us that quality and the chance of a lead to hokd on to. If we did this, it would hopefully help us get width again as our wide players could stay wide and support up front when necessary.

Perhaps it would also give Mozza the holes in front of the back 4 to dart into - Anelka dropped into these areas and they ended up playing a lot of 4 yard 1-2s that went nowhere.

Also, Anelka did lots of nice work 40 yards from goal but he can't hurt them from there. His threat is in the box or on the laat man and on the rare occasion he was in the proper forward rule his inteligent running got him in and he should probably have scored.

Finally, 4-3-3 in my opinion in the way we play it simply asks too much of our limited fullbacks. Ridgewell is getting a lot of stick today and i'm guilty of being harsh on Jones. Being fair, both of them are bargain basement fullbacks who always give it everything but have their limits.

Jones is a willing runner but suspect defensively and Ridgewell is one of the fittest players at the club and gets up and down all day but it's just not his game. He wants to defend, offer support but mostly play a 10 yard pass to his winger. He's not Ashley Cole and sometimes we expect too much.

i like Popov, but if we're relying of left backs to change games for us then we're finished.

I look at Bony, i look at names we are linked with. Deep down, i know Odemwingie is better than any of them. If we had a game tomorrow that decided survival, would you want Shane Long up front or on the wing or Peter Odemwingie? Harsh reality.

• Myhill - 6 no chance with goals but unorthodox and very ponderous when we needed him to release the ball quickly.
• Jones - 6 as always, gave his all and tried to support the attack.
• McAuley - 7 a couple of great tackles, didn't do a lot wrong
• Ollie - 6 decent. Tried to play it short much more than southampton and we kept the ball better.
• Ridgewell - 6 needed to do better for their first but wasn't so bad. It looked like his first game with Sinclair in front of him. Not on the same wavelength.
• Mulumbu - 7 did his best to drive us on. Our best player.
• Yacob - 6 did his usually screening job quite well and looks more mobile this year but does lack the necessary yard of pace.
• Mozza - 6 should have scored the header early on but was looking more himself before injury.
• Long - 5 Out of position and looked lost. He's a tigerish, grafting frontman whose pace gets him the odd goal. He is not a winger. Bizarre. Amazed he stayed on having had a mare.
• Anelka - 6 looked much more involved but was caught in possession often and at times was 3 passes ahead of his teammates. Also played a lot of the game too deep.
• Sinclair - 6 bright enough first half but often too narrow and too unwilling to just carry the ball at pace. Anonymous 2nd half. Did track back well though.

Subs

• Not really given long enough although Saido looked lively and whilst Rosenberg has never really had a fair chance he once again didnt look in any way threatening. I dont see a 15 goal a season PL footballer in him.