Back from the WBA game

[Bristol Paul]

Overall I thought we played reasonably ok, and definitely a lot better than last weekend. Defence pretty solid, Shorey did well on coming back in, Pearce I thought was excellent too. However, we didn't really test their keeper, and the Pog is looking really poor at present. Alf our best player in my view. Legs slow, just not Prem quality. Hate to say it, but we just don't have enou quality throughout the team, and even though as I said we played ok, unless things change massively then the bookis are spot on with their relegation predictions.

Scores
McC - 8, confident a couple of good saves
Shorey - 7 solid, much better than Harte
Gunter-7 improved
Gorks - 7, played well
Pearce - 8 best of the back 4
Guthrie - 6 got the quality but not the team mates
Legs - 5 just not good enough for this level, slow and panics when has more space than he realises
McLeary - 5, seemed reluctant to put his head down a la Kebe
McAnuff - 6, a few good runs, tried to get things going
Pog - 4, did virtually nothing, looks a turkey
Alf - 8 good game, gets involved, excellent control, and looks a threat
Subs
Hunt - 6 , ok, did more in 20 mins than the Pog did in 70, and holds the ball up well
Robson-kanu, 4, no impact whatsoever

[Plymouth_Royal]

Overall I thought we played reasonably ok, and definitely a lot better than last weekend. Defence pretty solid, Shorey did well on coming back in, Pearce I thought was excellent too. However, we didn't really test their keeper, and the Pog is looking really poor at present. Alf our best player in my view. Legs slow, just not Prem quality. Hate to say it, but we just don't have enou quality throughout the team, and even though as I said we played ok, unless things change massively then the bookis are spot on with their relegation predictions.

Scores
McC - 8, confident a couple of good saves
Shorey - 7 solid, much better than Harte
Gunter-7 improved
Gorks - 7, played well
Pearce - 8 best of the back 4
Guthrie - 6 got the quality but not the team mates
Legs - 5 just not good enough for this level, slow and panics when has more space than he realises
McLeary - 5, seemed reluctant to put his head down a la Kebe
McAnuff - 6, a few good runs, tried to get things going
Pog - 4, did virtually nothing, looks a turkey
Alf - 8 good game, gets involved, excellent control, and looks a threat
Subs
Hunt - 6 , ok, did more in 20 mins than the Pog did in 70, and holds the ball up well
Robson-kanu, 4, no impact whatsoever

I know its your opinion but he did more than hunt did. All i remember hunt doing is mis-controlling the ball in the box and loosing it. Hal had a good header at goal, got in a good position in the box slipped at the last moment and sent shorey off down the wing to try and cross the ball

[Bristol Paul]

I'd say missed a good header, and then fell over near the end when in a great position to cross.Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but can't help thinking that this squad just doesn't have enough quality to stay up.

[Royal Ginger]

Overall I thought we played reasonably ok, and definitely a lot better than last weekend. Defence pretty solid, Shorey did well on coming back in, Pearce I thought was excellent too. However, we didn't really test their keeper, and the Pog is looking really poor at present. Alf our best player in my view. Legs slow, just not Prem quality. Hate to say it, but we just don't have enou quality throughout the team, and even though as I said we played ok, unless things change massively then the bookis are spot on with their relegation predictions.

Scores
McC - 8, confident a couple of good saves
Shorey - 7 solid, much better than Harte
Gunter-7 improved
Gorks - 7, played well
Pearce - 8 best of the back 4
Guthrie - 6 got the quality but not the team mates
Legs - 5 just not good enough for this level, slow and panics when has more space than he realises
McLeary - 5, seemed reluctant to put his head down a la Kebe
McAnuff - 6, a few good runs, tried to get things going
Pog - 4, did virtually nothing, looks a turkey
Alf - 8 good game, gets involved, excellent control, and looks a threat
Subs
Hunt - 6 , ok, did more in 20 mins than the Pog did in 70, and holds the ball up well
Robson-kanu, 4, no impact whatsoever

What the hell did Alf do to earn an 8?

[LoyalRoyal22]

I went to the game also

Dissapointed, not with any individuals personally, just collectively as a team we dont look up to Prem standard, i am worried


McCarthy- 8- handiling awesome, couple of quality saves
Gunter- 7- Tidy, overlapped, one goal saving tackle just before half time
Shorey- 6- What we expect, was nice to not have a weak point in the back four #harte
Gorkks- 6- Looks shaky, and i think time will show he isnt prem standard
Pearce- - 8- Best defender on the pitch, looked awesome, really held his own
McCleary- 6- One good cross and a overhead, apart from that not much service to him
Jobi- 6- Started poorly, got better as the game went on
Ledge- 5- Didnt win many tackles, which is the big part of his game, again i dont think he is Prem standard
Guthrie - 6- Tried to make things happen
Pav- 5- Didnt really do anything, but no service
Le Fondre- 7- Again no service, but movement was good

[Upper West Ginger]

Broadly agree with the above.
Shorey looked about twice as fast as Harte, and showed some touches of both class and confidence.
Leigertwood is out of his depth in this league. Last season I wondered why QPR had let him go: now I begin to understand why. I'd rather have Karacan than Legs.
McCarthy made a couple of decent saves, and looked a lot better than the last game.
Pog never really made any impact.

[TBM]

I sorry but I don't know how people are giving our players 7's and 8's after a performance like that.

West Brom were poor but we were worse

Everyone a 6 for me bar Pog and Ledge a 5

[Davezk]

I thought we did reasonably well today. Just needed to show a bit more quality on the crosses and final ball through.

[winchester_royal]

Don't think we were poor, just very average.

While BMcD has added decent players in the summer, he hasn't brought in anyone that is going to do something to win a 50/50 game like that one. Thought we controlled the game quite well, we just never looked like turning some decent possession into goals.

Hopefully Kebe/Roberts can be our catalyst in that regard, but I'm not particularly optimistic.

[TBM]

We don't keep the ball well enough and still resort to this long ball into the corner flags

[philM]

We don't keep the ball well enough and still resort to this long ball into the corner flags

Were you there today? There weren't many long balls to the corner flags, might have been better if there were.

Agree we don't keep possession very well.

[urz13]

No need to panic yet. We are capable of scoring at this level - 4 goals in 4 games. Defensively wry solid today just lacked a little creativity. Leigertwood wasn't his best today but he's was good vs Stoke and Chelsea so let's not write off our most consistent player over the past two seasons. McAnuff improved and showed flashes of his ability but made some silly errors. McCleary again looked determined and skilful, McCarthy very good in goal. If that had finished 0-0 I would be very happy at the moment - West Brom are currently 3rd.

McCarthy - 8, some cracking saves, could have done better for the goal
Shorey - 6 solid, one FK that looked close
Gorkks - 7 I think he did all right, composed all the time an played some very good balls up to ALF.
Pearce - 8 superb display, won everything in the air and some crucial tackles
Gunter - 7 has massively improved since Stoke
McAnuff - 6 improved from Tottenham but looked unhappy/un-motivated at times
Ledge - 5 not at his best, but helped out at the back from corners and fk's
Guthrie - 6 pinged it out to the wings lots
McCleary - 6 great overhead effort, decent all round
ALF - 6 little service, was through on goal but booted in the face
Pog - 6 some good flick ons.....to no-one

Hunt - 6
HRK - 6

I think everyone would see the performance as 'superb' had it been us that nicked it 1-0 tbh
Fans were good throughout the game, great atmosphere.

We're getting there. The win will come.

[winchester_royal]

The frustrating thing for me is that we kept possession far better than we normally do, yet we didn't show any of the cutting edge that got us promoted.

Can't quite work out what capacity we're playing at atm.. If it's near 100% then we're in trouble. But if (as I personally think) we've not really got into our stride yet then once we do get the machine well oiled we could go on a run akin to that of Wigan's last season.

Still quietly optimistic things will come good.

[Whore Jackie]

A draw would have been a fair result. Both teams huffed and puffed, with not that much quality on show. First half was pretty even, second half we were marginally the brighter, until their goal. Looked a bit soft, though I've not seen a replay and it was a long way away. That said, I couldn't really see us scoring in open play or indeed winning a header in their half, and that's where Harte can unlock the door.

First-time visitor to The Hawthorns and pretty impressed. Excellent ticket prices, friendly stewards, stood all game and they even had laminate wood flooring in the concourse. Just a bit gutted that I missed out on The Vine, still at least I know Walsall is quite a lot plusher and greener than I'd ever have imagined.

[urz13]

Only real complaint about the ground was the lack of concourse catering facilities.

[Carlos]

Boring game, no threat from us. We have one game plan which is to get the ball wide and get crosses in. #playing against 2 good centre backs this is always going to be difficult, particularly when le fondre is so small and pog off his game so badly.

Their goal was slightly against the run of play but for all our possession we had not actually created a chance. Lucky to still be nil nil at half time anyway with an excellent gunter clearance and excellent mcarthy save keeping us in it.

Defence looked reasonably solid with gunter having more urgency to get forward and shorey his usual bustling one footed self. For the goal they weren't tight enough and mcarthy looked wrong footed by a snapshot which was fairly central, no blame attached to him however.

Mcleary fairly anonymous other than a couple of bursts first half with mcanuff looking low on confidence but took on his man a couple of times with embarrasing penalty shouts as the result. Ledge out of his depth and his passing is going downhill rapidly which puts alot of pressure on guthrie to be main creative outlet. They both played too deep which meant WBA could defend deep easily knowing our only route of attack was down the wings.

Need to raise our game and get rid of the idea that we are bad starters to a season. At this rate we'll be cut adrift by the time we get into our stride. Also Bad Wolf chant is absolutely awful, grown men howling is something that should never be heard. On a positive note the Balti pies were good and we were stood near an attractive female police officer.

[RoyalBlue]

Mcleary fairly anonymous other than a couple of bursts first half with mcanuff looking low on confidence but took on his man a couple of times with embarrasing penalty shouts as the result.

Not sure why they were embarrassing - he was caught/bundled over. TV showed them to be marginally outside the area so not a penalty but freekicks should have been awarded.

[Cypry]

Definitely better than the Spurs game. We kept the ball better, but I'd hesitate to describe us as "defensively solid" - McCarthy had to make a couple of cracking saves, and they hit the post, as well as the goal....

Two key areas where we really struggled - up front, Pog and ALF just didn't seem to click. Pog plays little knock downs all the time, but needs a strike partner who will collect them at pace - we seem to be wanting him to hold the ball up more, and he is struggling...he also seems to find it hard to win the ball with his head....

I'd prefer to see Pog paired perhaps with Hunt, or Roberts - not sure that the chemistry is right with ALF...

The other problem we seem to have is still just in front of the back four Guthrie does little in terms of tracking back and tackling (or perhaps I should say less than Karacan) - Leigertwood can't do it all, and Pearce/Gorkks never seem quite sure whether to close players down or not - as McD says, the shot for their goal should have been much better closed down...lost count of the number of times we were shouting for them to get tighter to WBA just outside our box....

McCarthy - 8 - a couple of great saves, not much he could do about the goal - better distribution, but needs to kick it to McCleary less...
Gunter - 6 - linked well with McCleary - would prefer to see him overlap more
Pearce - 7 - a couple of great tackles
Gorkks - 6 - good tackling on the whole, but looks a bit nervy on the ball (due to mistake with Defoe perhaps?)
Shorey - 7 - did Ok - would've liked to see a few more set pieces from him
McCleary - 6 - bit disappointing - little in the way of quality crossing - doesn't seem to be fully confidn of hi bilirubin to beat the fullback - think he might struggle for his place when Kebe returns
Guthrie - 6 - did Ok, but no real standout moments. Set pieces a touch disappointing, and needs to help Leigertwood more defensively
Leigertwood - 6 - made some great tackles, and missed a few. Worked very hard, but can't be everywhere
McAnuff - 7 - I actually thought he did ok - took on the fullback, got a couple of decent crosses in, and won several dangerous free kicks
Pog - 4 - poor, can't remember anything of consequence he did, other than lose the ball...
ALF - 6 - couple of really nice touches and some good runs, but looks a bit lightweight against PL defences to me

Hunt - 7 - thought he looked pretty good to be honest - won the ball in the air and held it up a lot better than Pog
HRK - 6 - didn't get loads of time to impress much - got into a good position for his headed chance, but also fell over unchallenged...

[SydenhamRoyal]

[quote="Bristol Paul"]Overall I thought we played reasonably ok, and definitely a lot better than last weekend. Defence pretty solid, Shorey did well on coming back in, Pearce I thought was excellent too. However, we didn't really test their keeper, and the Pog is looking really poor at present. Alf our best player in my view. Legs slow, just not Prem quality. Hate to say it, but we just don't have enou quality throughout the team, and even though as I said we played ok, unless things change massively then the bookis are spot on with their relegation predictions.

Pretty much sums it up, tho I thought Pearce was our best player, and I think other than him you should knock a mark off everyone. Nice drive back?

[USA_Loyal_Royal]

i didnt get to see the match, but i remain optimistic about this season. once again we played a higher, mid table side that will probably finish top 10 (maybe top . by the sounds of it we played them quite well, but our strikers just couldnt create chances to score. im excited to see mccarthy playing well and our defense being described as "solid". id like to see more creativity in the midfield, better distribution, and more chances to give the ball to our strikers in positions that they can score. if we can get a good run of form going, and maybe get a few wins under our belts from our relegation rivals i dont see it being a problem for us to stay up. i know this might be misguided optimism but i trust brian that he will get us through this rough patch. remember the last few seasons we always start rough, but its how we finish that matters.