West Bromwich Albion 0 - Millwall 0

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Ratings submitted so far: 10

Brendan Clegg:

On paper I thought this looked like it might be our best 11. My question before the game was would we mix it enough physically to enable us to play.

I thought it was quite a simple game. We dominated a lot but did not up the tempo, take risks or really go for it enough. We were content to let the minutes tick on and eventually we ran out of them.

Had we done more to score early, and the Maja effort was a superb move that might have deliver that, I think we’d have won.

But we have no variety striker and I thought our front 4 movement was poor all game - lots of walking and perhaps expecting we’d go backwards. There was one example where Diagana ran half the pitch and the moment came to nothing because our movement was so lacking and there was no killer ball to play.

Two points chucked away and although we didn’t play badly, we didn’t show enough desire to win and the ref fell for every bit of gamesmanship going.

Just a touch of perspective though… we could and should have ended this week with 3 or more extra points as each game has been really marginal between what we got and getting more. We’re well placed. I think a lot is resting on how Dike comes back because unless he gets up to speed quickly we have to find a way to get a different but quality striker in, otherwise it will cost us a crack at the autos in a season where it is clearly wide open.

• Palmer - 6 little to do but one important stop.
• Furlong - 6 Okay, one absolutely brilliant defensive header.
• Ajayi - 6 mixed bag but one great killer pass
• Bartley - 6 Okay, his shot when we had players over was really silly.
• Heggem - 6 Strong game
• Mowatt - 7 Usual business and tried to make things happen
• Molumby - 6 Tigerish and kept it well
• Fellows - 5 One good cross but we were too slow to get it to him and they doubled up well
• Grady - 6 Bright moments but too few of them
• MJ - 5 Not happening at the moment, decisions and end product missing and also too weak a few times
• Maja - 6 Some great touches but frustrated by our lack of options and often refusal to cross the ball.

• Racic - 5 Did little.
• Dobbin - 6 One okay move but didn’t really get it.
• Swift - 5 Couldn’t impact it
• Jed and Grant - Late and pointless

Kev Buckley:

Stop-motion action gives the impression of movement.

It seems strange to have so little to write about given the amount of posession that the Albion, in stark contrast to the Boro game, had in this one but, for all their re-cycling of the ball, Albion only managed three shots on target - one less than a side that had one fifth of the overall share of it.

A complete change to the "attacking three" saw Johnston, Diangana and Fellows come in for Grant, Swift and Wallace, with Molumby replacing Racic.

The first ten minutes was all Albion, although all Albion could muster from it was a corner at the end of the period that came to nothing.

In a nod to how deep Millwall had set up, it would be Ajayi, pushed up and doing a creative centre-mid cameo who would slide in a ball behind the left full-back that allowed Fellows to run onto it on the byline and pull back the perfect invite for Maja to shoot from near the front post: sadly, he shot well over.

Maja would have another chance within five minutes, although the ball only ended up with him after a couple of misplaced or poorly hit passes weren't gobbled up by the away side's defence - this shot went straight at the covering defender.

As twenty passed, Millwall would attack, Albion would pinch the ball, but then cough it back up and allow Millwall to get off a shot that Palmer fumbled out for a corner, from which the visitors failed to make the most of a free shot at the near post.

Bartley was so far forward that he's get a chance to curl one from twenty-five yards that didn't cause the keeper much alarm, with Maja reprising the effort, and the result, a minute later.

Just before the hour-mark, Millwall spurned another free shooting opportunity, this time at our back post, and as sixty-six passed, instead of the usual double or triple substitution to change things, Corberan merely had Johnston and Fellows swap wings.

Millwall would waste another free header before the like-for-like changes began: Racic on for Molumby and Dobbin for Johnston with about fifteen minutes remaining.

Shortly after that, the commentary team suggested that Albion had had 91% of the second-half posession but had only one shot to add to the highlights reel.

With ten to go, Swift came on to replace Fellows, and with just one minute of the ninety left, Wallace and Gromit (OK: Grant, but, bear with me) were sent on for Diangana and Maja but they were unable to turn the stop motion nature of the fixture into A Grand Day Out (Now: see what I was doing there?).

For me, the problem with Corberan's ball retention plan today was that too many passes were made to players whose only option would be to pass the ball straight back to the deliverer, which didn't then open up Millwall, nor move Albion any further up the field, so as to start their edge-of-the-box one-two-s.

For sure, the away side were deep and compact, but the lack of balls through the lines, whether because of a fear of potentially losing posession; because a lack of movement up front, or because the deeper lying midfielders are unable to pick a pass (witness Ajayi's first-half ball being the standout pass of the game), has got to be a slight concern, more so when none of the substitutions seemed to actually change things, neither in the implementation, nor in the approach.