My heart said a win here, my head said a draw. Should I be happy, then, with the final result? Possibly, but I’m not. West Brom are, quite simply, a poor team and we’ve only taken 2 points from them this season. That isn’t really good enough. It’s not enough to say that Scott Carson had a great game. It’s not enough to say that Matty Taylor almost took the Baggies to the sword single-handedly. The fact of the matter is, we should now be another 2 points closer to safety.
Plus points? The form of Taylor is very welcome at the moment, whilst Davo continues doing what he does best (what’s that? He’s not in the England squad but Carlton Cole is? What a fantastic surprise…).
Minus points? Quite simple really – the form of Elmander, Muamba and, more recently, McCann, continues to cause concern. At the moment, the rest of the team are carrying these players and that isn’t on when we’re scrapping for points. It seems that Megson has the same virus as Alex Ferguson at the moment – playamisfitbigmoneystikerevenwhenthey’renotperformingjustbecauseyoushelledoutalotofmoneyforthemitis. Elmander is similar to Berbatov in one respect – the managers paid a lot of money for these players and, despite piss poor form, seem reluctant to drop them, presumably because of the huge initial outlay. Sorry Gary but that isn’t enough of an excuse – Elmander just isn’t cutting the mustard at the moment and should be dropped (in favour of Smolarek) for what is a huge game at home to Middlesbrough.