West Brom v Everton. 20th Jan at 20.00.

[SteKelly]

Lukaku set up the goal last night

I think the defender did mate

 

[Toffeelover]

Dissapointing result , but a point is better than none.

 

[riddick]

if they decided to resort to going long, then naismith should have been brought on immediately. He's got his limitations, yes, but he is pretty damn good at getting the balls in the air and flicking them on. Again, thats on Martinez. With tactics that bypasses midfield, Osman is not even pretty useless, he's completely useless.

 

[bluebud]

Allez allez oh sounded amazing last night on the telly, fantastic away support again, disappointing result but we are still well in contention for fourth place.

 

[Shaun4658]

Finally calmed down after yesterday.

Not a performance to remember, but we didn't lose, and we're definitely still in the race for champions league.

A new signing or two and players coming back from injury could really kick us on second half of the season.

Me too mate. It says a lot that we are very disappointed with a point away from home. We've come a long way. I agree with you completely on the signings and returning players too.

COYB!

 

[steele]

Watched the last 25 min and it was awful. Distin cost us 2 points, on his back heels when they scored

 

[Eggs]

....disappointing performance and result. It was almost a return to the early days of transition when we played out a few less than memorable draws. There's no doubt a number of players were off form and there's no doubt the normal accurate passing game was missing. I suspect the loss of Pienaar and Barkley were particular contributing factors, but the odd shape of the team might have also been a factor. Players didn't seem close enough to each other to play tikki takki. Things happen, we are still in a good position, move on.

 

[JelavicBrate]

I agree with previous posters I believe we looked much better with Oviedo at left back than Baines. We are currently missing Barkley and Deulofeu because they offer a much better attacking threat than the other players at our disposal. Lukaku has been useless since the Derby in November, however now Jelavic has left we have nobody to bring in who is a proven goal scorer. I don't think we have a chance of beating the Red ****e with these injuries, particularly if we're without Coleman. The problem is Lukaku isn't getting any service, without Deulofeu or Barkley to find him he looks isolated. Baines decision making since he has came back has been pretty poor, I don't know why he was taking the free kick that led to the disallowed goal. I should of been Mirallas out swingers are very easy to defend against, if Mirallas had taken the free kick I believe we would of scored from it.

 

[deipnosophist]

I agree with previous posters I believe we looked much better with Oviedo at left back than Baines. We are currently missing Barkley and Deulofeu because they offer a much better attacking threat than the other players at our disposal. Lukaku has been useless since the Derby in November, however now Jelavic has left we have nobody to bring in who is a proven goal scorer. I don't think we have a chance of beating the Red ****e with these injuries, particularly if we're without Coleman. The problem is Lukaku isn't getting any service, without Deulofeu or Barkley to find him he looks isolated. Baines decision making since he has came back has been pretty poor, I don't know why he was taking the free kick that led to the disallowed goal. I should of been Mirallas out swingers are very easy to defend against, if Mirallas had taken the free kick I believe we would of scored from it.

We don't seem to do in swingers. Don't know why, but we just don't.

 

[Big Doug]

Last night was a rare off day for the team and the manager, but that's made worse by knowing being in 4th before the derby was riding on it.

We started well enough, and for long periods of the first half it was like we were the home side, dominating possession and playing in WBA's half. However we didn't take advantage of all that possession and good play, and when we did eventually score, while not exactly against the run of play, it was a much more even contest.

Second half we should have came out flying at them pushing for a second, but as it was them bringing Vic on made a massive difference. Suddenly he ball was sticking up top for them whereas Lukaku seemed to be repelling it. I was hoping at this point we'd weather the storm but that didn't happen and Martinez should have made a change around the 60minute mark, probably bringing in McGeady for the increasingly ineffective Osman. I was also disappointed with our tactic of going long second half. I know Martinez stated this was because he wanted us to counter WBAs new pressing game, however if the ball wasn't sticking to Lukaku we should have gone back to our passing game.

Their goal eventually came after Howard attempted to start a quick counter by throwing long to Lukaku, although meaning well, it think at this point we could have done with holding onto the ball and trying to take the sting out of their growing confidence.

All in all its definitely two points dropped and a missed opportunity to go 4th. However can't see us playing that badly again this season, we're 1 point away from 4th with games against both of our direct rivals for that spot over the next couple of weeks.

With players returning from injury and new faces arriving I'm still confident we can mount a solid challenge until the end of the season

the problem Is it wasn't mate, it was a typical opportunity to take the initiative over our rivals dropping points and we ****ed it up as usual. Could you seriously imagine us having to go to QPR and get the 3 points to win the league like citeh did that year, we would of bottled that game and lost 1-0

 

[sheedys big toe]

i think that martinez played for the draw, we played to deep.

 

[Liam_Baggies]

WBA deliberately roughed that pitch up!

No we didn't.

Firstly, it wouldn't help ourselves, a side that are looking to retain possession.

And secondly, with the weather, we've had problems getting the pitch into the right condition, so much that it needed artificial sunlight in recent decent. Quite surprising given we've paid an awful lot of money for these new modern day pitches and it's usually in good condition - it was OK against Palace in our cup game.

Whilst Everton are a good footballing side we wouldn't ruin our pitch just to stop you from playing - such arguments are ludicrous, If I may say so.

 

[bicycleheader]

No we didn't.

Firstly, it wouldn't help ourselves, a side that are looking to retain possession.

And secondly, with the weather, we've had problems getting the pitch into the right condition, so much that it needed artificial sunlight in recent decent. Quite surprising given we've paid an awful lot of money for these new modern day pitches and it's usually in good condition - it was OK against Palace in our cup game.

Whilst Everton are a good footballing side we wouldn't ruin our pitch just to stop you from playing - such arguments are ludicrous, If I may say so.

very ludicrous!
Congrats on the point and, I think, on the new manager.

Hope you enjoyed Vic at his most useful. I hope for your sake he manages to hit a run of form. Lukaku could learn a thing or two about taking a ball into feet from him.

 

[Liam_Baggies]

very ludicrous!
Congrats on the point and, I think, on the new manager.

Hope you enjoyed Vic at his most useful. I hope for your sake he manages to hit a run of form. Lukaku could learn a thing or two about taking a ball into feet from him.

I'd forgotten who Anichebe was! In fairness to him, he was very good on his arrival last night. Did exactly what we want from him. Hold the ball up and provide a platform for our other players to play into. Vydra, despite being a good player himself didn't necessarily offer us that.

As for Pepe, last night was a good indication of what we're going to try and do. I was happy with our performances but we're still very much work in progress.

 

[DrEFC]

Good luck with the remainder of the season baggies! They worked hard for the point & may of snatched it. We really need to be able to step up a gear, although- squad depth will unfortunately put paid to most of our ambitions.