West Bromwich Albion 0 - Norwich City 1

oshawabaggie:

Typical Albion - play great against tough teams and turn in crap against relegation sides. Four centre halves against a side like Norwich?? It took Pulis 60 minutes to realize nobody was going to get to the byline and put in a cross. By then we were down a goal. Yacob was the only player to shine.

Otherwise it was really poor. I'm not an advocate of getting rid of Pulis, but he really is one dimensional in his approach. Too bad he lost his 3.5 million quid - he could have bought us an attacking wingback.

In a word, rubbish!

Johno:

First half just about bearable, second half atrocious.

Pulis has kept us up please now let us move on!!

Peter Wall:

Total anti-climax after those 10 points from 12. We can beat Arsenal, Man Utd and Everton and get excellent draws away to Leicester, Chelsea and Liverpool. But we cannot beat Peterboro, Bristol City, Swansea, Bournemouth, Villa and now Norwich who are fast becoming a Hawthorns bogey team. Most of our players seemed to be as lethargic as our litigation hounded Manager.

Just relieved we have those points on the Board. Let's hope Yacob can survive 2 more games without his 10th Yellow - then an Amnesty I think. Stress Free Easter coming up!

Talyllyn Baggie:

I am interested in the thread of the previous posts, as speaking to elderly Albion fans, the same question was asked about our relative performances against good & poor teams in previous decades, so maybe it's in our DNA and something we just have to accept. Norwich were very poor, but having failed to get that early goal, they grew into the game & helped by our wayward passing, scraped a win.

However, we are safe and we are not in Villa's position, so, I suppose the glass is half full.

Brendan Clegg:

Not a lot to report. A comedown from performances in recent weeks. We seem to be clueless when playing teams we are expected to beat.

I thought we started quite brightly and in the opening 20 we had the better of it. For much of the first half we were on the front foot although after the first 20 we began to lose patience and run out of ideas.

Over the half we regressed from keeping the ball until we could find a forward pass to feet into Sess/Saido or Rondon, to the panicky percentage angles long balls or aimless kicks in behind.

Our left side was a problem. Evans struggled to offer anything on his wrong foot and so had to keep coming inside and Gardner, unlikely hero of the last few games, was as honest as ever but his limitations - especially on his wrong foot - were shown up because we had the lion's share of the play. It's well and good him being industrious and keeping it simple when he is the underdog but when the impetus is on him to drive forward and create we have problems. Not that I blame TP for picking him as he's done well in recent weeks, but it was pretty obvious after 20 minutes that it wasn't working.

The game got flatter, Norwich nicked a goal through poor play from Dawson and to a lesser extent McAuley, Evans and Olsson covering.

From then on in Alex Neil showed that he is willing to adapt his principles for survival. He basically Pulis'd us. Norwich killed the game at every chance and packed their own half. The time-wasting, 'injuries' and bending of the rules was laughable but we can hardly complain - these are tactics we have also employed this year and it does intrigue a morbid world where all teams in the league might do this. Would Pulis still be as successful? Hopefully we never find out.

I thought the changes were either incorrect or ill-timed. McLean came on at left back and was dreadful despite Poc doing a good job against United and showing quality in the final 3rd where it mattered. McLean's decision making and end product were really bad. Pritchard was the right sub but too late, and needed to be on the right or through the centre - or perhaps not reliant upon supply from McLean. Lambert weakened us but I sort of understand the logic - our passing was so poor that we'd given up on trying to find Sess to feet.

I left early on 87 minutes. confident nothing would be missed, and I have never seen Halfords Lane so busy.

Ho-hum. I guess this is why Pulis has famously never finished higher than 12th.

• Foster - 6 Not really much to do. Did Ok.
• Dawson - 6 Generally Ok although the goal came from him forgetting his own limitations on the ball.
• McAuley - 6 Would have been a 7 but for the goal. Generally sound.
• Olsson - 5 Had a few mare moments on the ball but wasn't at fault for the goal. Suffers badly when he doesn't have a left back he can pass to. Kept going.
• Evans - 6 Just about a 6 as he understandably struggled at left back. A great player but we do seem to concede more when he is in the team.
• Sess - 6 Our best player in the first half but struggled when moved to the left in the 2nd half and the supply to him was dreadful. Maybe should have scored but it was hardly a sitter, reading a bad pass then having a 20 yard dribble and shot. Should have worked the keeper.
• Fletcher - 4 Has been really impressive in recent weeks but was very poor today. Tried to force it too much. I don't know how many touches he had 2nd half but the game passed him by.
• Yacob - 7 Probably our best player on the day. Solid, great tackles, above average distribution.
• Gardner - 5 Didn't happen for him. Couldn't keep the ball and set plays were poor.
• Saido - 6 Started bright and showed great touches at times but 2nd half supply was dreadful.
• Rondon - 6 Did really well when we got it into him and ran his legs off but the supply was too poor.

• McLean - 4 All heart and running but very poor.
• Pritchard - 5 Couldn't get into the game but his touch, movement and pace look like they are worth us seeing more often than we do.
• Lambert - Unfortunately for him and us has been an enormous waste of money. I'd rather see a kid get minutes now.

Hippothirteen:

Absolute tripe! Having made a long trip from Devon, you'd have hoped the boys in stripes would turn up........ they must have been tired having had 2 weeks off.

A few thoughts

1. How/why does Yacob get more of the ball than Fletcher?
2. Where were Sess, Saido, Gardner and Dawson yesterday?
3. Why do we have no, and I mean no, creative midfielder?
4. If we solely rely on knockdowns from Rondon, via hoofed balls from GMac and Jonas we will keep losing to poor sides like us who have no creativity but can play 'head tennis' better than us.

On a positive note, we are 23 points above AVFC and they have only 7 matches left. We are officially the least cr*p team in West Mids ;-)