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Last Match Forum - 04/01 Swansea City (A) / Re: After Match Debate

« on: January 04, 2025, 02:27:58 PM »

That’s an awful result. Swansea the most powder puff team I’ve seen this season and we were so comfortable until we scored.

Need to sort out the mentality when we take a lead, we actively invite teams onto us when there’s no need to. Swansea have a really weak bench so I’m not having the excuse of our awful subs, we just stopped playing football again.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: December 29, 2024, 12:58:43 PM »

Diakite is atrocious. This squad is atrocious.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: System / Tactics / Personnel

« on: December 27, 2024, 02:40:44 PM »

Haaland missed on Boxing Day
Kanu (the original) once missed when the ball was practically on the line .
Cole is coming on (if at all) with minutes to play,it really doesn’t matter how much money you are on it’s difficult getting in to a match within minutes,I’m not saying that he (or Fabrota,or Diakite) are world class….just that they seem to have not been given the same minutes that others have that have been pretty dire this season (Wallace/Racic/Dobbin)

Do you not think there is maybe a reason why? If the 3 players we signed for absolute peanuts from poor leagues can't even get 5 mins off the bench ahead of players who are playing poorly, then maybe they aren't good enough to play Championship football? They're playing against Championship players every day in training, that's their chance.

Same reason we don't recall Reyes Cleary and throw him in when he can't get on the bench at Walsall. I even remember seeing calls to give Mo Faal and Jovan Malcom a chance last season... A lot of these players are miles off it.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: December 26, 2024, 07:28:16 PM »

That’s a poor side to be losing against. Not surprising as soon as we lose the best coach in the division we look an absolute mess off the ball.

Big appointment needed now, and a big January window as well. Think playoffs are probably out of reach if not.

Racic needs sending back, he’s no use in this division.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan

« on: December 24, 2024, 02:43:24 PM »

Very good manager at this level. Who I think will suit the situation Valencia are currently in, and I think would have been ideal to give us a fighting chance had we got promoted. I think a section of our fanbase have massively underestimated his ability and potential - there's very little between teams outside the parachute clubs, and he's consistently had us near the top of that pack.

Nice to be getting decent compensation for him though. Makes a change having people at the club who are actually wanted by other teams, half the players we released last summer still haven't found a club...

The next appointment will be interesting, first big test for Nestor and Patel - will be a big insight into the direction they plan on taking the club.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: December 15, 2024, 04:34:38 PM »

Thought we played pretty well and on another day we’d have been ahead at the break.

Seems to me the team were desperate not to pass to Frabotta when he came on.

Noticed this. To the point MJ and Heggem were preferring to run into blind alleys and making poor decisions than pass it to him.

Think he's obviously out of his depth and will be moved on. No issues with the free transfer punt on him though, much preferred to the Tyrone Mears types we'd have signed under Lai.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Uros Racic joins on loan

« on: December 15, 2024, 04:23:46 PM »

Not the profile of player I thought he'd be. Was expecting a Scharner/Yokuslu type but he's got no tenacity or bite. Decent technically, but very slow, poor defensively and doesn't really impact the game. I've wanted to see him tried in the Swift role, but think I'd probably prefer Swift there anyway.

File under worth a punt, but not really worked out.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: December 15, 2024, 04:09:04 PM »

Need to add some quality and energy to the squad in January. Racic, Wallace, Swift and Diangana offer very little. Frabotta, Diakite, Dobbin and Cole offer nothing at all. It's pretty clear the team that started the previous 2 games (Holgate/Bartley interchangeable) is our best 11, and as soon as we need to rotate it falls apart.

Would be nice to see us outplay a team for once. Can't remember the last time we made a team look poor, maybe Portsmouth in September?

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: December 15, 2024, 03:16:56 PM »

Getting sick of how passive we are defensively. We don't get out to anything. We just let teams swing crosses in unchallenged, camp 11 players in our half and we don't get out for large periods of games. There's never any pressure on the player on the ball.

Was trying to think of the last time a team played poorly against us and I can't recall one? It's because we just let everyone come at us unchallenged. Every game we give up so many chances and corners.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan

« on: November 30, 2024, 05:07:40 PM »

Always been a fan and will stick with him, but it’s starting to get a bit silly.

We’d have been better off throwing the game against Sunderland and going all out attack today, a hard earned point on Tuesday and we just chuck it away today because we’re so negative. What’s the point in battling for draws against the better teams if you’re just going to sit back and try to cling on against the worse ones as well?

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: November 30, 2024, 05:01:51 PM »

This is an abnormal run of draws, and it’s due to an abnormal attitude towards Championship football.

I’ve never seen a side so terrified to lose a game. There’s zero attacking intent when taking a lead, zero ambition to score a second goal and we drop so deep it feels like we’re holding on in injury time for large portions of games.

In a league where anyone can beat anyone, and winning games is always worth losing an equal share, we’ve decided to play for draws.

As much as I’ve been a fan of CC, we need a massive change in the way we approach the game because this isn’t acceptable.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: November 30, 2024, 04:16:45 PM »

I’ve never seen a team so negative when they take a lead. We never used to be this bad under CC but this is embarrassing. It’s been park the bus football since the 15th minute.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: November 07, 2024, 10:10:12 PM »

Not a bad result, but we don’t look in any danger of winning a game.

At no point in the last 8 matches has it looked like we’re going to win, and I really don’t see how that changes going forward. When we’re rolling it around the defence and teams are sat in we look clueless, and on the rare occasions we hit a team on the counter the decision making and final ball is atrocious.

We just don’t have enough quality in the final third to play the way we try to play.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: November 01, 2024, 10:22:29 PM »

The 3 in behind Maja are the issue, and have been all season. Stats they showed before kick off summed it up, before Grant’s assist today we only had Fellows with either a goal or an assist.

Swift - tidy but too passive and shot-shy
Johnson - very predictable and gets crowded out easily
Fellows - I’ve never been fully sold. He’s very good at his one trick, but based on his general play, shooting, physicality and pace he’s nowhere near a £10m player
Grant - the only one showing any directness and attacking instinct currently, but limited technically
Wallace - finished sadly, he’s a yard behind play and extremely one-dimensional. He can’t do his knock on and outpace the defender anymore so offers nothing
Diangana - assuming the injuries have ruined him, but wow he’s awful now. He can’t get away with being so weak and wasteful in possession considering he scores or creates nothing

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: November 01, 2024, 10:08:15 PM »

Mentality
System
Manager

We’re trying to build something under the new owners after years of going backwards. We can’t just keep changing managers every time we go on a bad run, it’s not worked for the past 10 years and we’ve got a very promising young manager at the club. He just needs to be braver.

He tried something different today with the 442, didn’t really work but you can tell he’s getting frustrated with the performances and trying to figure it out. It’s pretty bad atm but I’m sticking with CC.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: November 01, 2024, 10:02:10 PM »

Really difficult to see where a win is coming from. It just seems to be long spells of nothingness, followed by 20 minute periods where we take a lead and offer nothing whilst the opposition makes changes and throws everything at us until they equalise.

You’re not going to draw your way to the Premier League. Mentality and system needs to change drastically.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: November 01, 2024, 08:59:59 PM »

45 mins of passive nothing football. Both sides struggling for any quality. But Grant and Maja with our first positive action of the game against the run of play.

I’m really struggling to see what the purpose is of Wallace and Diangana in this side. Neither offer anything in attack or defence and look shells of the players they once were.

We need to come out an attack in the second half, if we sit back and offer zero threat like we usually do when leading I’m going to lose it.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: November 01, 2024, 08:34:07 PM »

Scary how bad we are at the moment. Our attacking midfielders have been absolutely disgraceful this season.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: October 26, 2024, 05:07:05 PM »

Hard to see where a win is coming from right now. We’ve been so poor going forward the past 6 games and we’re coming up to a tricky run of games. The mentality is completely wrong for the Championship.

Everything is so slow, no runners in behind, scared to commit players forward, zero urgency and we look out of ideas every time we attack. We make it so easy for teams to just sit in and kill the game, I said it after Blackburn but every game just feels like a continuation of the previous one.

Hopefully that’s the last we see of Ajayi, he’s an embarrassment of a centre back. Diangana has gone so far backwards it’s unbelievable. Our wingers and attacking midfielders create very little and almost never score.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Carlos Corberan

« on: October 23, 2024, 10:04:33 PM »

Think he’s gone too far on the safe side and it’s backfiring massively atm. Everything about the way we play and the decisions he’s making is about minimising risk, and we’ve ended up extremely predictable and easy to play against

Every game feels like a continuation of the previous one, only the quality of the opposition changes. We’re playing a lot of nothing football, particularly when we aren’t losing, and it’s inviting pressure because we aren’t positive enough on the ball.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: After Match Debate

« on: October 19, 2024, 02:38:18 PM »

I really don’t get it. We’re now so risk-averse that we’ve become a really easy team to play against. Grant is the only player who doesn’t look terrified to have a shot. The amount of times we pass up chances to shoot or try to check back inside or overplay it is ridiculous.

And as soon as we take the lead we offer zero threat. Just try to roll the ball between the centre backs until we get robbed of possession. Teams know they can sit in our half as we don’t even try to attack. As much as I rate CC, there’s a balance between attack and defence, and he’s been miles off it the past few months.

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West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: State of the Squad - (Championship 2024/25)

« on: May 19, 2024, 02:12:49 PM »

Having thought about it, I'm almost hoping we don't extend any contracts. Kipre and Mowatt are the only 2 who I'd like to keep, but even they will both be into their late 20's next season, and neither are going to be PL level players.

I'd be extremely disappointed to see extensions for any of the others, would point to a lack of progression from the failing model we've been operating under. We need to go backwards to move forwards.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: May 17, 2024, 09:50:32 PM »

Besides everything else we just don't have the legs especially midfield I didn't expect to beat the saints over two legs we stayed in the game for most of the match.
Roll on next season.

Agreed. Molumby is our only centre mid who is mobile, not that he’s particularly good and has been out all season. We keep loading the squad with ageing s***e like M’Vila and acting surprised every time it fails.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: May 17, 2024, 09:46:58 PM »

Feels like we never came to win the game tonight with CC team selection and tactics. I think he was hoping for a penalty shootout

Agree to an extent, but I give him a pass against these relegated sides. They’ve got £20m centre backs spraying perfect long balls to a striker who doesn’t miss at this level. We’ve got Kyle Bartley who can barley turn or play a 5 yard pass, a striker who can’t control the ball, and Townsend who is alarmingly poor in almost all aspects of his game.

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Albion Matchday Forum / Re: In Game Chat

« on: May 17, 2024, 09:42:07 PM »

Not surprised at all. We just can’t compete with the relegated sides anymore due to the clowns who’ve been running this club. Been a positive season overall, I’ve pretty much switched off since we made the top 6 as that was the expectation for me this season.

Time to rebuild, hopefully under a brand new recruitment model.