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Pugin

Not one word about West Brom

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In amongst all the hand-wringing about City's performance, no one seems to have noticed how our opponents played.

The were, frankly, a horrible side full of body-builders and spoilers. They set up with the proverbial banked defence and gave us no space in any attacking area. They were as well-drilled as any side I have seen recently and were happy to cheat their way through the game, time-wasting, holding, and pulling shirts. A sterner ref would really have got into them.

They were successful in stopping us from playing and in ruining the game as a spectacle. Crucially, they got a valuable lead from a set piece when we had been suckered into conceding a free kick in a diabolical postion.

Dean Smith knew what we were up against and probably knew that it might be a struggle, considering our profile.

So let's just remember that there are two sides out there trying to thwart and overcome the opposition.

 

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I imagine West Brom fans feel the same sort of disappointment that many of us on here feel - a squad that is much better than most of the other squads in this league and playing poorly. The big difference, of course, is that we've got the wins - by the skin of our teeth - and that changes everything.

I still think Bruce is toast, and should be.

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Thought they were pretty good, at least they were when they were not time wasting or generally engaged in gamesmanship which was about 50% of the match. Never seen a team time waste so persistently from so early in the game.

They will click at some point and climb up the league. 

Edited by Jim Smith

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42 minutes ago, Pugin said:

In amongst all the hand-wringing about City's performance, no one seems to have noticed how our opponents played.

The were, frankly, a horrible side full of body-builders and spoilers. They set up with the proverbial banked defence and gave us no space in any attacking area. They were as well-drilled as any side I have seen recently and were happy to cheat their way through the game, time-wasting, holding, and pulling shirts. A sterner ref would really have got into them.

They were successful in stopping us from playing and in ruining the game as a spectacle. Crucially, they got a valuable lead from a set piece when we had been suckered into conceding a free kick in a diabolical postion.

Dean Smith knew what we were up against and probably knew that it might be a struggle, considering our profile.

So let's just remember that there are two sides out there trying to thwart and overcome the opposition.

 

Absolutely spot on. They were good at disrupting. They really hardly played at all. 

Very, very difficult to get into a rhythm and play well against that. Pukki hardly had a touch. 

These days are what weapons are for. 

Parma 

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1 hour ago, Pugin said:

In amongst all the hand-wringing about City's performance, no one seems to have noticed how our opponents played.

The were, frankly, a horrible side full of body-builders and spoilers. They set up with the proverbial banked defence and gave us no space in any attacking area. They were as well-drilled as any side I have seen recently and were happy to cheat their way through the game, time-wasting, holding, and pulling shirts. A sterner ref would really have got into them.

They were successful in stopping us from playing and in ruining the game as a spectacle. Crucially, they got a valuable lead from a set piece when we had been suckered into conceding a free kick in a diabolical postion.

Dean Smith knew what we were up against and probably knew that it might be a struggle, considering our profile.

So let's just remember that there are two sides out there trying to thwart and overcome the opposition.

 

So a Steve Bruce team then.

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Although their league position suggests they are a weaker team, they have only lost the same amount of games as us.

SEVEN draws clearly demonstrates they are not an easy team to beat, and so it proved yesterday.

The ref never got to grips with them either.

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This is all very well, but we played badly. Many individual errors, far too many stray and under or over hit passes. Also, Max was strange yesterday, seemed almost disinterested even.

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Just a crap team of sloggers and time wasters.

Disgusting set up lacking any real skill.

 

Although did anyone else get lots of glee from watching max go down Infront of the Barkley and stay down until he was awarded a free kick then almost comedically jump to his feet and run down the pitch. 😂

Totally fu at wba right there given their village players panto performances.

Edited by Nexus_Canary
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It would be nice if our fans could figure out these sides game plan and get behind their side, rather than falling for it hook, line and sinker by getting tetchy and moany. But that's football fans I suppose. 

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Ultimately they did what they needed to do to get a result, and that's their right to do so. It's then up to us to find a way to combat their spoiling tactics. I'm sure we'd be more than happy to ****house our way to an away result against a team who are, on paper, slightly better than us. 

I do feel that West Brom probably don't need to play that way at this level, though. You could understand most clubs in the division playing that way against us at Carrow Road, but West Brom do have some good players in there and probably shouldn't have to resort to this style against anyone in the Champions.

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I have no problem with the way they approached yesterday's game. They dare not lose that one or I'm sure Bruce would have been gone. They would have been in the bottom three.

However, as a golfing pal of mine is a Baggie I know that the majority of their supporters want Bruce out. He even has the bare faced nepotism to have his son on the coaching staff. And his aftermatch interview was nothing but complaints about how they were wronged. He hasn't the talent or ability to coach a team that needs to attack.

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I know that this is a red rag to some people and that it is too early to draw firm conclusions, but atm WBA have the highest XG in the Championship and the lowest XGA.

Their points tally is poor but in other respects they may be seen as the most effective team in the championship at creating and preventing chances. I think that we saw plenty of evidence yesterday to see that the league table does lie in the early season. It will be interesting to see if Bruce gets the sack because there are signs that he may be building a team to challenge for promotion: strikers seem to be the main issue atm.

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We needed players on the pitch to unlock such a defence. Its to Cantwell and Dowell's shame that they cant nail down a place in this side as they should be standout players at this level and contributing with plenty of assists and goals

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Their couple of seasons down here have definitely taught them the referees are soft, useless and generally speaking have no idea what they're doing - they certainly aren't going to discipline time wasting. 

They took advantage of that.

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I’m glad it isn’t just me who sees the bigger picture - there’s two sides out there, it isn’t just down to how we play.  WBA have a lot of good players, and are in a false position that’s almost certainly going to improve.  Them scoring so early (and easily..that’s a different issue) ruined the game as a spectacle as they then ‘spoiled’ for an hour.  The game actually came to life far more after our equaliser. 

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27 minutes ago, Badger said:

I know that this is a red rag to some people and that it is too early to draw firm conclusions, but atm WBA have the highest XG in the Championship and the lowest XGA.

Their points tally is poor but in other respects they may be seen as the most effective team in the championship at creating and preventing chances. I think that we saw plenty of evidence yesterday to see that the league table does lie in the early season. It will be interesting to see if Bruce gets the sack because there are signs that he may be building a team to challenge for promotion: strikers seem to be the main issue atm.

It’s a red rag because basically you are defending the fact that they are totally boring and killing what the game should be about. I hope they maintain those ratios when they go down to League 1

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The only thing I've always disliked about this club is how meek and nice we are, we just never seem to be capable of doing what WBA did to us yesterday whenever we're in the Premier League or playing better teams and we can't match teams who do that to us.  I wasn't getting wound up by what WBA we're doing yesterday or the ref for letting it go, I was getting wound up by how we refused to give them some back and that we were just compliantly letting them get away with it. Not one of our players started getting on the refs back about the time wasting, we never left a foot in on someone or pulled them down when they were breaking on us, there was no holding or shirt pulling from us or dumping players on the floor during an aerial challenge . You need that side of the game as well as the prettier stuff.

Talk all you want about money/players/tactics etc if we had that edge about us and were capable of playing dirty and spoiling games we'd have gotten more than a pathetic 21 points last year and suffered fewer thrashings. Like one of our former managers used to say, you have to earn the right to play and yesterday we didn't, it's like we expected WBA to just let us and we were lucky to get a point alongside a dire performance. 

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Just haven't thre players to mix it with teams such as these, our midfield players are so lightweight.  Its the physicality issue a ball playing brick sh house required we've not seen hardly any who might fit.  Brad Johnson comes to mind few others, Grant Holt took no prisoners wither.  Hanley and Oma have the phsicality but we need it futherr forward.

We could have changed the game if only that early goal was avoided the space in the area given was criminal.  A draw was fortunate but welcome after being bullied for the majority of the match.  Hopefully we will not see another goal conceded in that manner.  

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1 hour ago, Commonsense said:

It’s a red rag because basically you are defending the fact that they are totally boring and killing what the game should be about. I hope they maintain those ratios when they go down to League 1

I'm not defending it: I hate it - but it is effective. It is the challenge we face if we get promoted - Palace, Burnley, Brighton etc didn't stay up by playing pretty football but by being "pragmatic:" is it a price we are prepared to play?

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I can’t understand how there was only one minute added to half time , WBA were time wasting even before they scored, summed up the refs performance 

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1 hour ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

The only thing I've always disliked about this club is how meek and nice we are, we just never seem to be capable of doing what WBA did to us yesterday whenever we're in the Premier League or playing better teams and we can't match teams who do that to us.  I wasn't getting wound up by what WBA we're doing yesterday or the ref for letting it go, I was getting wound up by how we refused to give them some back and that we were just compliantly letting them get away with it. Not one of our players started getting on the refs back about the time wasting, we never left a foot in on someone or pulled them down when they were breaking on us, there was no holding or shirt pulling from us or dumping players on the floor during an aerial challenge . You need that side of the game as well as the prettier stuff.

Talk all you want about money/players/tactics etc if we had that edge about us and were capable of playing dirty and spoiling games we'd have gotten more than a pathetic 21 points last year and suffered fewer thrashings. Like one of our former managers used to say, you have to earn the right to play and yesterday we didn't, it's like we expected WBA to just let us and we were lucky to get a point alongside a dire performance. 

Josh was getting blatantly shoved all over the place at set pieces. The one time he shoved back he got penalised.

The refs are simply appalling. As I've said before, I have a suspicion ha there's a degree of 'levelling down' going on to give the less skilful cloggers a better chance.

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For all this talk about what they did we need a team and manager that can unlock what ever is in front of you . we seemed short of both yesterday.

My worry so far is we could be winging  it. Sure we are second and that’s great but we have come from rock bottom on ok and some lucky wins. I would be happier in 6Th with the team showing they are improving each game.

All this talk of we have another gear I so hope is true but I’m starting to wonder if it’s really there at all .

 

 

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WBA played 'pragmatic' football which according to some on here is great.

After they went ahead they set themselves up superbly with two banks of 4. 2nd half they pressed high and hard and actually created the better chances and could and should have scored two more. They finished on top in injury time.

We were lucky to get a point. I thought it was a really good away performance.

And we were sh1te.

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6 hours ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

They didn't even set up to play football. Just tried time wasting for the majority of the match from the very second we slipped up and gave them a goal no other team would have let in.

If you’d seen the standard of opposition and watched the football league show you’d see that goals this bad and much worse get scored literally all the time. It was a poor goal to concede for sure, but to insinuate no other team would is just total fantasy

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WBA wont go up playing that way...if thats what suits them fair enough

I can only remember one team setting out to play like that and it being rewarded with a top 2 finish in recent years which was the awful Cardiff side that went up

The better sides 'usually' rise to the top who try to play , not spoil

 

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2 hours ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

The only thing I've always disliked about this club is how meek and nice we are, we just never seem to be capable of doing what WBA did to us yesterday whenever we're in the Premier League or playing better teams and we can't match teams who do that to us.  I wasn't getting wound up by what WBA we're doing yesterday or the ref for letting it go, I was getting wound up by how we refused to give them some back and that we were just compliantly letting them get away with it. Not one of our players started getting on the refs back about the time wasting, we never left a foot in on someone or pulled them down when they were breaking on us, there was no holding or shirt pulling from us or dumping players on the floor during an aerial challenge . You need that side of the game as well as the prettier stuff.

Talk all you want about money/players/tactics etc if we had that edge about us and were capable of playing dirty and spoiling games we'd have gotten more than a pathetic 21 points last year and suffered fewer thrashings. Like one of our former managers used to say, you have to earn the right to play and yesterday we didn't, it's like we expected WBA to just let us and we were lucky to get a point alongside a dire performance. 

Totally agree but we did get 22 points last season - vast improvement on our previous spell in the Prem 😂

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8 hours ago, Pugin said:

In amongst all the hand-wringing about City's performance, no one seems to have noticed how our opponents played.

The were, frankly, a horrible side full of body-builders and spoilers. They set up with the proverbial banked defence and gave us no space in any attacking area. They were as well-drilled as any side I have seen recently and were happy to cheat their way through the game, time-wasting, holding, and pulling shirts. A sterner ref would really have got into them.

They were successful in stopping us from playing and in ruining the game as a spectacle. Crucially, they got a valuable lead from a set piece when we had been suckered into conceding a free kick in a diabolical postion.

Dean Smith knew what we were up against and probably knew that it might be a struggle, considering our profile.

So let's just remember that there are two sides out there trying to thwart and overcome the opposition.

 

Refreshing post and something to think about for the myriad of Smith-hating, armchair managers here 👌

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9 hours ago, Pugin said:

In amongst all the hand-wringing about City's performance, no one seems to have noticed how our opponents played.

The were, frankly, a horrible side full of body-builders and spoilers. They set up with the proverbial banked defence and gave us no space in any attacking area. They were as well-drilled as any side I have seen recently and were happy to cheat their way through the game, time-wasting, holding, and pulling shirts. A sterner ref would really have got into them.

They were successful in stopping us from playing and in ruining the game as a spectacle. Crucially, they got a valuable lead from a set piece when we had been suckered into conceding a free kick in a diabolical postion.

Dean Smith knew what we were up against and probably knew that it might be a struggle, considering our profile.

So let's just remember that there are two sides out there trying to thwart and overcome the opposition.

 

Whilst I agree with you about the time wasting and shirt pulling you seem to forget that in the art of the former we have one of the game's masters in goal for us. No one wastes time like Krul when it comes to protecting a narrow lead for us!

I think you pay them some disrespect. They pressed with high energy (unlike us) and did not retreat into a defensive shell after we had equalised. In fact they looked far the more likely to score. They were going for the win that's for sure. Albion will zip up the table if their second half performance is anything to go by. Not a pretty side but could be (and were) extremely effective. 

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