Slaven Bilic and Alex Song appear to playing a game of bluff and double bluff with West Brom over Sunday’s team selection.
Song has declared this morning that he will take things slowly and on first appearances appears to have been joined by the manager.
Bilic – assessing the situation said: “It is important to have Alex Song back but we have to remember he has been out for six months and don’t want to jeopardise the long-term quality of his performances by rushing him into action.
He is physically ready but short of match fitness. We are not in pre-season so we need to find the right opportunities for him to get some game time.
We will be without our captain Mark Noble on Sunday after he picked up five bookings and that is a blow but, to be fair, we have a couple of options.
Alex is there but we also missed Pedro Obiang, too. He is available and has looked good in training.”
Then comes the sting in the tail, designed of course to keep Baggies boss Tony Pulis on the back foot when he says: “Unless we change the system, it will be one of those two who replaces Mark.”
I really don’t know why the managers do these pre match interviews, all the **** about their own teams and bigging up the opposition, I’d prefer a ‘stare down’ between the managers, I couldn’t imagine 2 boxers whinging and moaning about their own strengths and saying how **** fantastic the opposition is
Pulis is playing the same game and is quoted on Sky “we have a potential injury crisis but I’m not saying who is injured”, further in to the interview it became “niggles that have to be looked at again on Saturday” adding ” we are really worried about Andy Carroll, he’s a fantastic player who has 2 great feet and ariel strength bla, blah,
So reading between the lines , his central defenders can easily cope with AC and everyone could be fit by Sunday