West Bromwich Albion 0 - Everton 2

Summary:

Albion succumbed to their second defeat in a row as visitors Everton got their first win of the season. Brown Ideye was given his first home start of the season while fellow new recruits Georgios Samaras and Sebastian Blanco were named on the bench.

They got off to the worst start possible when Jonas Olsson passed a clearance to former loanee Romelu Lukaku on the edge of the box for him to shoot straight past Ben Foster.

The hosts had precious little in reply but did manage to get a few chances before going further behind shortly after the hour when a weak shot from Kevin Mirallas squirmed under Foster.

Samaras had pretty much Albion's only chance of a consolation five minutes before the end, but his acrobatic volley was straight at Tim Howard.

The result leaves Albion in 19th place with only Newcastle keeping them off the bottom.

Takapuna Baggie:

Pulis and Clement now Peace. Don't allow another hour of this crap.

Matt-London:

There are, as usual, more than a few teams that have either yet to find themselves or develop some understanding or consistency in their playing.

This was also true last year and we found ourselves still amongst them in the last weeks of the season.

Jeering and complaining vociferously after 10minutes of a game in a season that was little more than 3 games old is not the act of a mob intent on saving the club except by burning it to the ground first.

Maybe the West Brom supporters I used to be so proud of don’t follow them in the Prem. Perhaps it’s too expensive or something and the “supporters” from the last few seasons are completely different “supporters”. Perhaps if West Brom are relegated these will go and support someone else and we will get our old supporters back.

That would be nice if a little like a surgical solution to a simple cold.

One thing is for sure though.

If you support a team by destroying their esteem at the first and every other opportunity then you probably deserve to support a team that will be relegated.

Didcot Baggie:

A few posts ago I commented that the new signings would take time to settle in and that the Everton game would be a good indicator of the season's fortunes. Looks pretty bleak doesn't it? With the nucleus of the first team still last years strugglers (with Dawson instead of Big Mac) - the consequences are inevitable. Blood the new players now. And God help us if we lose against Burnley.

CadizBaggie:

I was one of the (few) supporters that really wanted to give Irvine a chance, I wanted to get behind him, I wanted him to do well, however... I now believe that he is the most inept manager I have seen at the Hawthorns (in a very long time). Putting yesterdays ‘performance’ to one side for minute, he seems to have sucked every little bit of what was left of the players confidence away, with only PogNog still believing in what he is trying to do. J.O looks lost, he looks half the player he was, and even Foster looks on edge, fully aware that at any given second his defence will collapse around him.

Brunt - why? Seriously, what does he bring to the team? It isn’t a goal scoring threat, his corners are so so, and he DOES NOT score free kicks and his movement is woeful - why is he in an Albion shirt week in, week out? Morrison and Gardener in the middle are way too alike, they do not make space for each other and they are not the answer... I’d honestly rather see Mulumbu and Yacob back in there. Why is Sess not getting his game, and did we really pay $10 Million for Ideye?

I understand we have players coming in, but even this early in the season you can see that this is simply not going to work, I honestly believe that you could give Irvine the best players in the league and it wouldn’t look much different to what we saw yesterday. A good coach he may be, a Premiership manager he is not.

We could have gone at Everton yesterday, I thought we would, I fully expected to see all guns blazing, but it was woeful from the off. Terrible mistakes cost us at the back and we offered so little going forward that it’s not even worth mentioning. My main Grrr is the fact that we showed no passion, no fire and were walked over by a very average Everton side. Confidence is gone, and it will take more than a few new players to sort that out. JP needs to do a whole lot of thinking before his cash cow goes down the swanny.

Talyllyn Baggie:

Everton were what we could have been, if Dan Ashworth had not left, loosening a few nuts, before the wheels fell off during last season. They were solid in defence, had two full backs roaming forward at will, an incisive and dominant midfield and devastating on the counter attack. On the other hand we have a group of players who are hesitant and not in sync of each other.

We are reaping the effects of last season and it's going to be a long winter. I just hope they can gel together as quickly as possible and that we can learn how to not over hit so many crosses!

New York Baggie:

I know things may not be great at the moment, and we do seem to be in a bit of a tailspin, but, Tony Pulis? It doesn't seem 5 minutes ago that we were deriding his Stoke team as the worst thing to happen to football. Is that what we want to see at the hawthorns?