West Bromwich Albion 2 - Crystal Palace 0

Summary:

Saido Berahino grabbed the headlines and raised the urgency of his contract talks by scoring the opening goal and lifting the Man of the Match award - not bad going for someone who only came on as a sub after half an hour for the injured Billy Jones.

Steve Clarke decided to play Chris Brunt next to Youssouf Mulumbu in front of the defence and leave Claudio Yacob on the bench, while Nicolas Anelka's illness meant an increasingly rare start for Shane Long up front.

In a somewhat scrappy game, made harder by the strong wind, both sides were guilty of stray passes and missed opportunities, luckily it was Albion who had the better of it thanks to Berahino's superb strike a minute before half time and Gareth McAuley's header from a Brunt corner with seven minutes left to play. In between, Palace could have scored three but for a great save by Boaz Myhill and some inability to find the target - equally, Albion could have put the game out of reach much earlier if they'd been a little more clinical.

Anyway, never mind the quality - feel the points, and Albion climbed to eleventh place, two points ahead of both Villa and Swansea. Job done.

Paul Gainham:

Not a great performance, not a great match the cold swirling wind not helping. Let?s just accept that the 3 points were important today however we got them.

Having said that, I would have expected us to control games like this far better than we did. Palace are a poor side and will be relegated and yet for most of the first half it was pretty even. Second half we started brightly and then curiously stopped playing and gave the advantage to Palace. Luckily McCauley?s goal came at the right time to put the result beyond doubt.

As expected, Palace defended in numbers but we lacked any real forward thrust, I lost count of how many times the ball went sideward?s and backwards and too many of our creative players had an off day.

Clarke I think got the set up right, replacing Yacob with Morrison and putting Brunt out left with Long up front and Sessegnon drifting behind him. I really wanted Long to do well today and make that position his but alas it was another typical Long performance, plenty of effort and endeavour but his touch and speed of thought both poor today. One moment when set up by Berahino today was embarrassing, poor 1st touch, slow to react and the defender got the ball away when he should have scored.

Apprentice like ?West Brom?s quest for a regular goal scorer continues?.

When Jones went off injured, Clarke made the right call by bringing on Berahino, not in hindsight given that he scored, but we needed much more attacking tempo and drive and he certainly brought that. Amalfitano who amongst with others had a mostly poor first half performed pretty well at RB through the second half and got forward well alongside performing his defensive duties.

Listening to the radio on the way home a fan rang in to mention that he saw Olsson both swear and spit towards the Halfords Lane stand after some groans when he misplaced a ball. I didn?t see it but unsavoury if true.

Player Marks

• Myhill 7 Made a couple of good saves, not much else to do, distribution could have been better at times
• Jones 6 Went off after about 35 mins, not quite up to usual level
• Olsson 5 More troubled then he should have been by Chamakh
• McCauley 6 beaten in the air more than he should have been, took his goal really well
• Ridgewell 6 Slightly better performance today, still not convinced by him
• Morrison 5 Poor showing, gave the ball away way too much
• Mulumbu 6 Good spells mixed with giving the ball away once too often
• Brunt 6 Got better as the game went on, tended to play square and backwards balls too often for my liking
• Amalfitano 6 Did well at RB, was poor in the 1st half right midfield
• Sessegnon 6 Mixed today, some nice trickery at times mixed with wayward distribution
• Long 5 Tries hard, runs around a lot but his touch and speed of thought were both poor.

Subs

• Berahino 7 Took his goal well
• Yacob 6 Steady in the time he had
• Vydra N/A Only got about 10 mins so difficult to call

Manager 7 Got the set up and early substitution right but was it his tactic to sit back a bit first half?

Referee 7 Let the game mostly flow well

Bobby Hope:

Well I guess the good news is the result! After much huffing and puffing we got the result we needed after an unconvincing performance. Another very good decision by SC for Billy's substitution. I keep saying it but Mulumbu signing was a major major coup - talk about value for money! Berahino took his goal extremely well after a good pick out by Sess and a 'take out' run by Long and to be frank he looks our best bet up front at the moment. Anelka worries me, Anichebe is a bit of a Heskey but holds the ball up well, Vydra we haven't seen enough of and Rosenberg will fade into obscurity imo. Long works his socks off but is he going to get double figures this season? I doubt it. We all saw what a top class pair of strikers can do last week and at City yesterday. And I think that SC really neeeds to give Popeye a go at left back. Mozza struggled and Dozza seems to have been forgotten so I am not sure where his mind is and how he is training at present.

Another clean sheet and another three points. We could do with getting Billy boy back for next week - he and Alfie are performing well on the right hand flank and have a good understanding but I fear that Ridgy will be exposed badly in our next game. I sincerely hope I am talking bollocks again!

Didcot Baggie:

Not a game that will live long in the memory as both teams found it difficult to pass the ball to a team mate in the same shirt. I want to credit Boaz for some really good saves and Mulumbu who broke up the Palace attacks time and time again. I'll take the 3 points but am disappointed that we struggled against a really poor Palace side who at times looked like the Dog and Duck 2nd XI. Full credit to the Palace fans who got behind their team for the whole 90 minutes. Come on Baggies fans lets do the same and make some noise!

Talyllyn Baggie:

As always with games against poor opposition an early goal settles things down, but the longer it goes on as scoreless, tensions rise, more mistakes are made and a growing nagging fear that they are going to nick it starts to gnaw away at you. I recall that Palace won 1-0 at our place under similar circumstances last time they came here in the 2009/10 season.

I do regret to report that both Jonas and Liam did indeed use industrial language to a section of the Halfords Lane after a misplaced pass, after which several vocal members of the stand started shouting at them, but this was when we were 1-0 up and things were still very tense.

I told my 6 year old great nephew (his first game) that they were just upset a making a mistake, so no damage done I hope.

Palace are going down.