A win, but an unconvincing one - My thoughts on the West Brom game

We were good in every aspect except goal scoring, and we can sit here all day talking about statistics, bad luck, and "lets take the positives".

WE CAN'T ****ING SCORE! And WBA were dreadful. The worst side I've seen against us this season! They didn't put one shot on target and we had over 70% possession!

I think there were some very good performance today, but it's very worrying that we can't stick it in the back of the net and put that last finishing touch on it.

Ratings -

Elliot - 5

Janmaat - 8 - Great runs, good deliveries.

Saylor - 8 - Solid.

Colo - 8 - Also solid.

Aarons - 8 - Apart from a few bad moments, very calm and decent.

Townsend - 8.5 - Superb skill and excellent deliveries. Unlucky not to score.

Tiote - 8.5 - Solid. Excellent strength, battling and distribution.

Shelvey - 8 - Excellent passes and great assist.

Wijnal - 5 - Anonymous and poor finishing. Good hold up play and passing sometimes.

Sissoko - 7 - Good runs, poor finishing, decent passing.

Mitro - 7.5 - Should have put WBA to bed, but good goal, good hold up and passing.

McClaren - 7 - Got the players up for the game, but no great tactics really. We just threw everything at them. He should have brung Doumbia on, and made changes earlier.

MOTM - I'm giving it to Townsend, just, over Tiote.

 

Why Elliot only a 5?

 

He didn't do anything. 5 means neither good or bad.

 

If you think that all players start the game with a rating of 5 and can shift it up or down through their play.... In this game Elliot had literlly nothing to do so couldn't shift his rating either way. We could have had McClaren in goal today and we still would have won.

 

Fair enough in which case some of your other ratings are far too high then

 

So explain the rating given to Gini then?

 

Didn't think we were unconvincing apart from sticking the ball away. Gini should have buried that header, and Andros was unlucky with his shot. Other than that, dominated the game.

 

Because he did some good things but also made some mistakes and was anonymous for large parts of the games. His net influence on the game was zero... he didn't win us the game nor did he put the result at risk.

 

Tash has said he was anonymous and poor finishing so has done things wrong - Elliot nothing wrong?

To me Elliot was a 6 (average) and Gini a 4 (poor). Also Sissoko was at best a 6 then as well

 

Unconvincing? I thought we were utterly dominant and could have won by a cricket score. Ironic we win and keep a clean sheet with a makeshift defence.

 

This is going to bite us in the arse at some point.. We bossed the game but only scored once, I'm not all doom and gloom but wba were terrible and we can't finish them off.. against better teams we would still struggle .. there need to be a point in the season when we batter someone

 

I mean it is all semantics but Tash also said that Gini had 'Good hold up play and passing sometimes' so did some things well, whereas while I agree that Elliot did nothing wrong he also did nothing well!
Gini: Starting rating = 5 / 'Good hold up play and passing'= 5+1 / 'Anonymous and poor finishing' = 6-1 / Final rating = 5
Elliot: Starting rating = 5 / 'Did nothing wrong' = 5-0 / 'Did nothing well' = 5+0 / Final rating = 5

 

His kicking was quite poor today.

 

We did well, got the result we needed with (gasp) the performance to boot.

If we could finish our chances this could have been so much more comfortable but I will take it.

 

Touch unfair on Elliott and to a lesser extent Gigi and a bit generous on Sissoko otherwise I would agree with the ratings.

I think Gigi was good in phases and as someone else has said somewhere Sissoko hasn't in the main got an end product.

 

Were still **** and we wont get anything against chelsea or city, so im just pleased we won no matter the performance.

 

Good to see your positive side come out Pantsy.

 

You never know, are either of them televised? Seems to motivate players like Sissoko to move up a gear...

 

Don't think we learnt anything today, West Brom were that poor. We might learn something away to Chelsea, if we're up for it or not. Probably will be, and we'll all decide we'll be ok until we play a team like southhampton and get hammered.

 

At one point I swear I saw Elliot in a deckchair reading the sun.