Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Topics - Dan

Pages: [1]
1
West Bromwich Albion FC / Player of the Season?
« on: April 24, 2022, 01:12:44 PM »
Now is traditionally the time for player of the season.....though following the 17/18 season, for the second time in 5 seasons it does seem like the club won't give an official award owing to how poor the season has been (which really tells you everything about how poorly the club has been doing).

Looking at the team its a very tough choice, usually even teams at the bottom of the table have one or two people who had good seasons but it would be really hard to describe anyone in this squad as having had a good season.

My vote would personally go to Matt Clarke, who's been largely consistent and solid if unspectacular. Though, that really goes to say more for the rest of the team than it does for him being particularly impressive.

2
West Bromwich Albion FC / Our record at penalties in the premier
« on: April 16, 2016, 04:55:54 PM »
Is there a worse side?

http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Premier_League_Penalty_Statistics.html

According to this link our overall record in the premier league will after today now stand at 22/35. That's a 62.85% success rate. The league average is 84.5%. We've been bad at penalties as long as I can remember, I'd imagine a good chance we're the worst of all league teams the century so far. I think Ellington aside we haven't had a single regular taker who I trusted in that time. Dorrans was alright, probably about the average conversion rate.

3
West Bromwich Albion FC / The Scouting Team
« on: October 28, 2014, 10:07:18 PM »
I think serious questions need to start being raised about the competence of our scouts. The club masked this and used McDonough as a scapegoat last season (him conveniently being blamed for our bad signings) but for a second season in a row we've failed miserably in signing foreign players. Really you can go back to Rosenberg on this too.

Generally our English based signings turn out OK, Lescott, Wisdom, and Gardner have been shrewd signings. Baird was baffling but away from him, we usually sign at least half competent English based players. Even Anichebe and Sessegnon from last season ended up contributing more than most. But our foreign signings are not just bad, they're often genuinely terrible. I'm all for allowing bedding in times but its a great concern when there's absolutely no quality showing underneath.

Davidson looks the worst full back we've had since Mattock, which takes some doing.

Gamboa has his moments but I'm not overly convinced over. Still better than our usual foreign signings.

Ideye - Struggling to see really any quality there that suggests anything like a 10m fee was warranted. He might get better but never to justify anything like that fee.

Blanco - Again he really show's very little whenever he plays. You allow players time to bed in but you should see a glimpse of something. He doesn't show that.

Samaras - Barely looks bothered, seems neither a winger or a striker, and speaks volumes that he doesn't even make match day squads.

Varela - Can't say as injured all the time.


Peace said he made mistakes, well if he wants to correct them his next ruthless act needs to be a big overhaul of a scouting department who've consistently failed outside England for a few years now. An astonishingly poor record.

4
West Bromwich Albion FC / Set Pieces
« on: September 14, 2014, 03:02:47 PM »
Am I right in saying we haven't scored off a set piece in 2014? Our run of not scoring from direct free kick's is even worse, that goes back to Dorrans vs Stoke in January 2012.

Of all the things we're terrible at this is amongst the most galling, if there's one thing we should be capable of doing if we apparently work so hard on the training pitch, its being decent at set pieces. Yet somehow we're the least effective in the entire league at attacking them, and probably the worst at defending them too.

Given we produce absolutely nothing in open play and a large part of our game seems to be about getting it wide, and forcing corners, its almost funny how bad at set pieces we are.

5
West Bromwich Albion FC / Player of the season?
« on: March 22, 2014, 07:18:17 PM »
Should be an interesting one this year seeing as there's not a single stand out candidate. Usually by this point of the season, one or two players are standing above the rest, but this season there's really nothing. Most players have either been horribly inconsistent, injured, or not been particularly bad or good. They usually start the voting for it in about 4 games time too...

Still if you look at the candidates:

Jones - Was easily our best player the first half of the season but missed pretty much all of 2014, only played 2 games for more than a half this year so injuries will cost him it probably.

McAuley - Still been pretty consistent, though the defence has become increasingly poor these last few months and he can't be exempt from that. Perhaps a 7/10 year season. Not quite as assured at the back anymore though.

Yacob - Played pretty well most the season, but again, niggling injuries have meant he's missed a lot of games. Probably my choice at the moment given he's not had a horrible run of form like most our team whilst Jones is likely going to miss at least another couple of games.

Then you've got the likes of Mulumbu who I think has actually played pretty well most games. But certainly no stand outs, though it doesn't help most best players have missed quite a few games.  Still, who do people thinks going to get it?

Only players with 15 or more appearences listed.

6
West Bromwich Albion FC / Dave McDonough leaves Albion
« on: February 27, 2014, 06:49:19 PM »
Left the club by mutual consent according to Chris Lepkowski on twitter.

Reports of his supposed power seemingly entirely made up then.

7
West Bromwich Albion FC / Penalties this season
« on: November 09, 2013, 05:34:23 PM »
Not getting much luck this season, are we?

Southampton very soft late penalty.

Stoke no penalty for Adam standing on Mulumbu's ankle, not given despite being as obvious a decision as you'll see.

Today, dive, never a penalty.


Maybe we've got away with some but none spring to mind,  and there'll be a few could go either way decision,  but lets just hope this doesn't cost us come the end of the season. Could easily be 5 points better off this season already if not for the decisions above.

Maybe Clarke needs to kick up a big fuss about in and make all the national media to put pressure on them, he shouldn't have too, but it works. I recall Pulis doing the same thing about Stoke never getting penalties, low and behold they got 2 against us next game - one a obvious dive, the other a contentious shoulder barge. Likewise Mark Hughes was moaning about bad decisions for Stoke and again, next game, us, Mulumbu no penalty. Seem's to make the refs scared of giving decisions against them in case they were wrong and it'd lead to more moaning.

8
West Bromwich Albion FC / Televised Games?
« on: April 09, 2012, 02:29:18 PM »
Is there some sort of reason for our lack of televised games? You're meant to get a guaranteed 10 a year, but we're only on 7. That works out at 1.5m less in TV money than we should be getting, which is a fairly large amount.

Looking at the schedule we're not due to be on again this season either. The only possibility is maybe the last day if Arsenal are still in the champions league race. I only noticed as Stoke bringing up their 10th TV appearence of the season. It seems a bit odd that we seem to have missed out on it, I can't imagine the club would turn down the money. Norwich by contrast are on (or will be on 11), Wolves on 9 (but you'd imagine their last game against Wigan will probably make TV.

9
West Bromwich Albion FC / Our penalty record since April 2007....
« on: December 11, 2011, 11:49:27 PM »
Its a constant source of amazement how bad we are at penalties - spanning 3 different managers, 3 different numbers one goalkeepers, and 4 1/2 seasons since our last outright penalty save, Kiely against QPR on the 31st March 2007. I imagine its considerably worse than it looks here as well because aside from that Kiely save against QPR, I think it may well be Hoult against Liverpool on boxing day, way back in 2004, that we saved a penalty. And by saved I mean outright saved, the goalkeeper stopping it and the rebound not being put in directly from that stop.

Conceded:

Wigan - Scored
Spurs - Scored (off rebound)
Bolton - Scored
Liverpool - Scored
Villa - Scored
Swansea - Scored
Man City - Scored
Man City - Scored
Ipswich - Scored
Stoke - Scored
Stoke - Scored
West Ham - Scored
Blackpool - Scored
Cardiff - Scored
Sheffield United - Scored
Cardiff - Scored (off rebound)
Ipswich - Scored
Barnsley - Scored
Sheffield United - Scored
Nottingham Forest - MISS - Wide
Man City - Scored
Burnley - Scored
Sunderland - Scored
Blackburn - Scored
Newcastle - Scored
Norwich - Scored
Leicester - Scored
Colchester - Scored
Cardiff - Scored
Scunthorpe - Scored
Burnley - Scored
QPR - Saved

31 penalties since the last outright save - only one of which was off target altogether. Even taking into account the 3 that we're either scored on rebound or missed outright thats still a 91% record against us. Or 97% if you consider rebounds as penalty scored, since our last outright save.

Now looking at our penalty  scoring record over the same period of time:

Scored:

Villa - Miss
Everton - Score
Norwich - Miss
Wolves - Score
Liverpool - Score
Liverpool - Score
Man United - Miss
West Ham - Score
Arsenal - Miss
Swansea - Score
Blackpool - Score
Plymouth - Miss
Sheffield United - Score
Newcastle - Scored
Newcastle - Scored
Scunthorpe - Miss
Scunthorpe - Score
Watford - Score
Ipswich - Missed
Wigan - Missed (scored from rebound)
Fulham - Missed
Hull - Scored
West Ham - Scored
Everton - Scored
Blackpool - Scored
Coventry - Scored
Burnley - Missed
Peterborough - Scored
Scunthorpe - Missed
Wolves - Missed
Cardiff - Scored
Barnsley - Scored

So over the same period of time we've had 32 penalties, missing 12 of them. A 62.5% conversion rate, even including the penalty that was put in on the rebound thats 66% - or we outright miss one in every 3 penalties over that time.

The worse however, is if you look at purely league games, in which case we've had 26 penalties over that time, missing 12 of them, which equates to a 54% conversion rate, or taking into account the Hull penalty scored on the rebound, 58%.

We're also on a run of 19 consecutive penalties scored against us, including rebounds, compare that to our best record over the same period of time of scoring 5 penalties in a row.

10
West Bromwich Albion FC / Brunt's Penalties
« on: October 22, 2011, 03:40:15 PM »
AGAIN!

I'm honestly amazed we let him take penalties. Since he's been here he's missed an absolute load of penalties, it keeps happening, its costing us points. I'm confused as to why we we keep letting this happen.

His conversion rate is around 50%, I'm just tired of seeing it happen time and time again. He's taken one good penalty in his time here, against Liverpool, the other ones he's scored have been very lucky.

Seriously, its costing us time and time again. I know Odemwingie's not great either, but surely we have someone in the other 9 close to competent at them. The worse thing is the club doesn't seem to clock on, he's always mentioned as being penalty taker with Dorrans (who doesn't start).

11
General Football & Sports / England Under 17's
« on: June 30, 2011, 11:32:16 PM »
Just beat Argentina on penalties to make the quarter finals of the under 17 world cup in Mexico. I'm sure now they've got this far interest may well increase - they play Germany in the quarter finals on the 4th of July.

They were a bit iffy in the opening 2 games, but the last 2 they've been very good, particularly today they bossed the game against Argentina, and only a mixture of bad goalkeeping and poor finishing meant we had to rely on penalties.

It is at least something to be positive about the future of English football, what with the under 17's of last year winning the euro's.

12
West Bromwich Albion FC / Luke Daniels Joins Scunthorpe
« on: June 16, 2011, 10:39:34 PM »
Is there any news about him, he never seems to be mentioned, yet we always seem to extend his contract. Given he's 23, turning 24 in the course of next season you'd have expected some news but its pretty strange. Aside from the fact he has the distinction of being the clubs longest serving player, and was on the bench a few times in the play off season he's never really challenged the first team, but we seem to extend his contract nonetheless.

So is it at all possible he could very well be our back up keeper next year? If not it all seems pretty pointless keeping him, certainly at a minimum as 3rd choice keeper. Or will we once again extend his contract and loan him out?

13
General Football & Sports / John Carew
« on: May 01, 2011, 12:57:17 PM »
Seem's we got incredibly lucky to miss out on him. For starters you have his huge drain on resources, 50k a week was it!? But then imagine if we had signed him, Odemwingie probably would have been shunted to the wing and we may well never have had the goals he's scored recently.

His time at Stoke has been mixed between a reasonable start, but lack of goals, then injuries, and now he can't get in the team. Since joining them he has 1 goal in 8, and this is at a team who really suit him more than us.

Now we're safe I think its one that rather than look back on and be glad. Although the seemingly dreadful January window didn't work out too bad at all.

14
West Bromwich Albion FC / Steven Reid
« on: April 10, 2011, 01:46:00 AM »
Turning into something of our unsung hero this season. For starters lets not forget that before joining us on loan, the guy was never a right back, or in fact a defender of any sort, so his versatility and willingness to learn and perform to such a level at a new position is admirable in itself. But even then he spent all of the season till Hodgson came in (or pretty much) as a sub to shore things up. But he never complained, in fact quiet the opposite he was always very positive and never stropped off.

Then RDM goes, Hodgson comes in, Jara not exactly impressing, but Reid has been something else, aside from being capable defensively, going forward he's been equally impressive, and then there's even the added bonus of his leadership. He's been a revelation in all honesty and if we stay up we have to look at Reid as one of the main players in the revival. And then of course forgetting all of that, its just as incredible how he's bounced back from such severe injuries - i'm sure Blackburn look on with envy at the moment.

So to one of the true professionals of the game, well done Reidy.

15
West Bromwich Albion FC / Internationals Watch
« on: March 18, 2011, 07:02:48 PM »
Was going to make a thread about Olsson who's been called up and is apparently in line to get his first competitive start, but thought it might be useful to have a wider thread to keep an eye on our players on international duty.

You'd think Morrison will at least get some game time as well for Scotland against Brazil, which might be worth looking out for.

Pages: [1]