Hugh hands out the points after a dreary bore draw at the Hawthorns
Hart: Absolutely nothing of any consequence to do. Not his fault but therefore only a 5
Zabaleta: Neat, tidy, composed and clever. Defended well and tried to make things happen 7
Reid: With Albion showing little attacking intent there was little going on to worry the skipper 5
Collins: Ginge is what he is and you know what you are gonna get. Injured and replaced in the second half 5
Fonte: With little serious defending to do no issues and happy to join midfield on occasions 5
Cresswell: Ok but not where he was a couple of season back and those deadly crosses seem to have deserted him 5
Antonio: Power running at speed and a menace whenever he was on the ball but he didn’t see enough of it 6
Kouyate: Contributed very little – needs to find some of the high energy form and step up 4
Obiang: Some good ball winning, a great shot off bar from distance and decent attempted through balls but some wayward stuff in there too 6
Chicharito: Feel for the fella. Fish out of water on the left side. Bilic has to sort this out quickly 4
Carroll: Most of the stuff coming to him aerially was from the back rather than the sides where there was a clear lack of quality. As a result we didn’t see the best of him 5
Subs:
Arnautovic: Ineffective for the most part and crossing of no consequence at all 4
Ayew: Ran round a lot to little or no effect 4
Sakho: Got eight minutes and didn’t look too interested as a result 4
Sorry for coming out here ranting but I have to say if Bilic thinks Andy Carroll is the answer – well for me he has to be sacked. Carroll was poor on Monday, no work rate at all in the second half, he was even worse today. He did not look like scoring so he should be dropped for the next game. In fact most people except our clueless manager would see him as an impact player. When you play 3 at the back, the idea is to keep possession and to pass the ball to the two up top. Today looking at Bilic’s tactics it is to play long balls from a back 3. Long ball rubbish again.. When you have a player who has no mobility it makes it impossible to create space etc. I would love to see Sakho and Hernandez up top with Anautovic in the 10 role for the next game with Antonio and Masauka as the wing backs. keep the 3 at the back and the two in midfield. However that would be too much for our inept manager. If he thinks a point at West Brom was a good result he should seriously have a look at himself.
Yes. Just what does he hope to achieve with Chicharito out left?
4 points from 2 games – we need to get some momentum so don’t expect tactics to change too much yet. We can get more expansive once we’ve moved up the table. On and based on WBA’s form of last 12 months – a point away to them IS a good result
Chicharito, 39 out of his 39 premier goals in the box, Slav plays him on the wing. Me thinks after 1 more game Slav will be doomed. We have quality players, a decent manager would love to have them.
Agree about Hernandez but a point at WBA is always a good point, it’s hard to mark the defenders down and Cheik played well, I would give the whole team 7 we outplayed them for 90 minutes without creating much, it was a good result imo