Jobi McAnuf down the middle

[mr_number]

McAnuff is terrible in this league. Reminds me of Walcott

'greed. I wouldn't have Walcott in our team either.

[If you still hate Futcher]

McAnuff's problem is that he's often left isolated and finds himself up against two or three players. Same with Kebe. Until either the full backs get forward to support our wingers more often, or the midfield creates a bit of space for our wingers to work with, then we'll struggle. We've got to move the ball faster across the middle and get the opposition on the back foot. For whatever reason, it took us 80-odd minutes to achieve that against West Brom.

Agree with everything you say regarding our limitations going forward in the 451 we had 1st half, but I thought the one thing we were doing better on Saturday was switching the play. Especially in the 1st half there were several cross field balls from Guthrie, Harte and Carrico but the problem was that, as all our CMs were deep, there was only Pog and perhaps the opposite winger in the area to hit so most of the crosses were just hopeful punts which West Brom could deal with comfortably.

The switch at half-time meant that Guthrie went back and McAnuff was the CAM and, while this was the period of the game that we were at our most dire, McAnuff was at least more involved in there than he had been on the wing and Guthrie had the freedom to come and get the ball from the defence without having to worry about getting forward himself. Meanwhile Karacan was picking up the pieces and giving the ball short.

I'm not sure that we've had this midfield combination before and for me Jobi should be quite well suited to the CAM role (a poor man's Morrisson if you like) rather than being moved to the middle tackle. The only other time I can remember a similar midfield was the 2nd half against Arsenal and that seemed to work quite well then too - I know, I know, they probably weren't trying. Obviously I would rather we bought someone who plays there normally but that's going to be a lot of money and until we do Jobi looks to be the best bet out of what we have.

I think that the performance in the 1st 20 mins of the 2nd half was more down to the players mindset than the shape of the team as nothing we tried came off, there was one attempted cross from Jimmy in particular, which was just lobbed behind and didn't even reach the front post, that pretty much summed up everything for us.

It was only with the introduction of Alf that we started getting more numbers forward and asking West Brom difficult questions and obviously Kebe's goal provided the spark to lift the players and make them truly believe again.