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West Bromwich Albion 2 - Swansea City 0
oshawabaggie:Ten million quid? I always said he was a bargain. Joking aside, Brown (great) Ideye was a revelation. What a difference a dose of confidence makes. He hardly put a foot wrong all game, scoring one, setting one up, holding the ball and laying it off accurately, putting himself about - in short, being the target man we have been searching for since Lukaku. Most impressively, his interaction with Billy BK was so crisp. Both goals were well taken. It actually looked like they were having fun playing together. Now there's a novelty. To be fair though, this was the first game in ages where the front men actually got some decent support. Mozza worked his arse off. Like everyone else I was gloomy after the Burnley game, but this was a much better team effort. We challenged further up the pitch and despite a fairly drab first half, I felt we could get a win as long as Swansea didn't take advantage of our plodding fullbacks. Somehow we managed to paper over the cracks. In fact I have to give Brunt and Dawson credit for being willing to play out of position. Their distribution was awful though. I still think Poco or our other International fullbacks should be given a run out, maybe against West Ham? Feeling much better after this really good effort by everyone. Brendan Clegg:Well a long way off from good but miles better. I was worried about the lineup again when I saw the team - mainly the fullbacks - but I thought they both were resolute if low on quality and Morrison and McManaman then Sess did really well defensively in front of them. They were exposed a couple of times but we got enough bodies in the centre to just about get away with a couple of scrambles. I was surprised by how poor Swansea were - like many others on the train home. They kept the ball badly, Gomis was awful and gave them nothing to build on and really poor on quality when they did wriggle free out wide. Perhaps we didn't allow them to settle. Perhaps they had a bad night. Probably a bit of both. For me most strikingly we came out and pressed high from the off with high tempo. We kept it up and deserved the win - albeit this was a close to a gimme as you get in this league. Again having a natural left footer at left back was progress and we kept the ball slightly better as a result. The players who typified the performance were Ideye - again masquerading as a half decent player from the Twighlight Zone. Bags of effort, strength, hard work, making nuisance of himself and fighting for everything. He earned his goal for this even if the quality was lacking. Huge improvement. And the second was Morrison for his chasing, running, hassling - often drifting centrally to help the mobility of Yacob and Fletcher but also tracking back. Plenty of others had admirable games without getting carried away - fulfilling their individual jobs well. A massive 3 points - I think 3 more wins and a draw or 2 will just about see us right but it's probably the toughest league I can remember. Villa are dross but Lambert is gone now and they surely have the squad for an attack minded coach to come in, have a go and take them to safety. We've dragged Sunderland back into it. More the merrier. Would love to see some players who deserve minutes play on Saturday - especially some fullbacks!
Mark Koppel:Pulis got the tactics totally correct tonight. Just like against Swansea away second half last year, you need to push them further up the pitch. An Alan Irvine Team I fear would have sat back and let them play. I actually thought we played ok first half as well and laid the platform to go on to win. At half time I was cautiously confident we would do it. As far as Pulis and man-management is concerned massive credit to him about his pre-match comments on Saido. As he said this kid comes from a broken family, lost his Dad when young, and needs guidance. Unless you want to drive our most naturally talent player out the Club, we should support him rather than abusing him. Player ratings today:
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