Baggies and the unexpected

Sunday, 22/01/2012

by Dave Wedgbury, Shoot's West Brom blogger

There are some things that I really do not expect to happen in life: winning the Lottery, a decrease in petrol prices and an away win against Stoke.

I always hope for the best against Stoke but deep down I fear the worst. But Saturday’s result showed that these things do happen and what an enjoyable game and outcome it was.

James Morrsion could have scored a three or four goals from excellent long distance attempts.In fact Morrison’s had three excellent shots that all could have been contenders for goal of the month, each were either saved or hit the woodwork. But his speculative shot that should have been saved wrong footed the keeper and seeing the ball crawl into the back of the Stoke net was a great feeling.

In addition to this Stoke had a penalty that should never have been. McAuley who has been excellent this season won the ball fairly but was adjudged to have brought down Walters, but the superb Ben Foster saved brilliantly to keep Albion’s lead intact.

Stoke did equalise with a header from a free-kick after Mulumbu was penalised, this looked like Albion’s chance of victory was gone but Albion do not give up too easily. With a free-kick in injury time it took Dorrans to hit a low curling shot through a crowd of players to sneak into the corner of the net – this really was a great time to score with no time for Stoke to come back.

Sly old Roy Hodgson made a number of changes to combat this powerful Stoke team – most importantly for me was the return of the impressive Jonas Olsson, who was given the captain’s armband in the absence of Chris Brunt.

Seeing Olsson and McAuley in the centre of our defence gives me the confidence that we can defend effectively against Premier League teams. Also playing Cox and Fortune up front with both Long and Odemwingie on the bench was a surprise to many fans. Fortune deserved his opportunity after some impressive cameo appearances from the bench and if not a prolific scorer, his work rate and ability to hold up the ball is excellent.

My biggest worry was the return of Tamas at right back, not a recognised full back and also not really match fit, but he coped and the aerial threat of Stoke may have been at the forefront of Roy’s mind when selecting his team. Who can argue with such decisions when your team leave Stoke with three points and no pictures were broken?

Without wanting to appear dissatisfied after such a great result, I still would like to see a couple of players coming into the team during this transfer window, but again I expect that I will be disappointed. Albion’s disclosure of a £9m profit is what we Baggies expect from such a thrifty chairman, it is great to know that we have a safe financial future in such recession hit times, but we would like to strike a finer balance between profit and expenditure.

A couple of players would not break the bank and may ensure our future in this division – but after Roy’s great result yesterday, who am I so argue with such an experienced and knowledgeable manager?

We won at Arsenal last season, we beat Villa away this season and now add to that winning at Stoke – as Jimmy Greaves said “football is a funny old game” – well I was certainly laughing yesterday and Albion have given a fine lift to all Baggies’ fans and hopefully we can move on from here and follow it up with a FA Cup win next week.

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