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+----- Thread: WBA - Playoffs Thread (/showthread.php?tid=13120)
WBA - Playoffs Thread - Ska'dForLife-WBA - 10-05-2024
![[Image: half.png]](https://i.ibb.co/FVQwx8k/half.png)
In some ways it's almost anticlimactic: a bit like the One Ring just got destroyed and the Dark Lord Sauron defeated, but instead of fading to the end credits we've got to spend the next twenty minutes fartarsing about back in the Shire instead. For most of the season, the playoffs felt like the minimum reward we deserved, but as time wore on they also felt like the maximum we could realistically expect. There are obviously a handful of better teams in the league than us this time round, and we could have just accepted that, taken our 3-0 5th-place happy ending from last week and declared ourselves done for the year, focusing on next season and leaving the teams who actually have a chance of going up here and now to get on with it. Instead, the EFL are going to inconsiderately make us play more football. Honestly, some people.
Southampton is their name, and beating Albion is generally their game. Sadly, LLWLLLLL isn't Wales's new star striker but our record against Saints in the last seven years. They visit the Hawthorns on Sunday having lost three of their last four matches, but the last was a victory at Elland Road against a Leeds side desperate for the win, so the likelihood that they've turned the corner just in time to bat us aside is near absolute. Even if we miraculously get the better of them on home soil, next Friday then takes us down to St Mary's where we've scored just three goals in the last decade (though encouragingly, one of them was this season and the other two came in a rare 2016 win). You don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind's blowing, and you don't need Private Frazer to tell you when you're doomed.
So we're underdogs: halflings, if you will. And as Corberan himself knows, with underdog status comes the absence of expectation and the freedom to play without fear. All of the pressure is on Southampton to perform, and as Leeds found out to their cost last week, strange things can happen when you need a win at all costs and the opposition don't. By far the most likely outcome of the next seven days is Albion exiting the Championship playoffs unsuccessfully for the fourth time - the unnecessary final scene in a season which has already ended happily enough for us - but in the meantime, who says we have to stick to the script? The boring, predictable old Shire needs a kick up the jacksie, and we might just be the hobbits to do it.
![[Image: 3.jpg]](https://i.ibb.co/D9wj6XS/3.jpg)
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - Blue Baggie - 10-05-2024
That's brilliant. Got everything Facts, history, data, tongue in cheek, humour a piece of genius writing.
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - 4evaabaggie - 10-05-2024
Ska’d, “will done my precious”,
Another write up that is full of our expectations, with humour and information.
We all thought that we would fight a relegation battle with our budget, squad and absent owner.
King Carlos did a Phil Collins and “against all odds”, took us to the play-offs. In true Albion style we tried to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, again in true Albion tradition, we failed miserably to hold on to our defeat and turned it into a win. Again in historical tradition, Albion,s luck deserted us, Norwich lost to blues and we ended fifth. Instead of blues crapping on us and folding so we could finish sixth. We now have to face our most recent boggy team in Southampton, we could have been facing a Leeds side who have lost their bottle but no.
Well, grab your tissues, trim those nails, the rollercoaster, stomach churning, nerve jangling, end of the show show that is the lottery of the playoffs is about to begin, clench those buttocks, cross those fingers and toes, sit back and hold tight.
COME ON YOU BAGGIES make us even more fit to bust proud …. Wembley and greatness awaits you …… or not.
See you all on the other side. Albion til I die.
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - Salopbaggie - 10-05-2024
Well sadly my prediction is, we win at home 2-0, we lose 3-1 at St Mary's, then we lose on penalties with the ever reliable Swift and BTA missing theirs. What odds would I get for that at Coral's?
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - Blue Baggie - 11-05-2024
(10-05-2024, 20:58)Salopbaggie Wrote: Well sadly my prediction is, we win at home 2-0, we lose 3-1 at St Mary's, then we lose on penalties with the ever reliable Swift and BTA missing theirs. What odds would I get for that at Coral's?
Sadly this is close as it gets.
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - Stairs - 11-05-2024
Fantastic post Ska’d.
It does seem a daunting prospect. But we play better against top half teams and so with CC weaving his magic Albion getting to Wembley is not something I’d bet against.
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - 4evaabaggie - 12-05-2024
Playing with BTA up front alone, Wallace and Weimann on the bench. Hasn’t worked well all season, this worries me. No sign of Maja, thought he was fit now. Leeds and Norwich goalless at FT.
HT - no goals.
Saints on top with possession and shots, 9 to 7. They have 2 on target to our 1.
Not feeling confident about the outcome today or overall.
We’re not ready for promotion but we need the cash influx.
Hoping for a better second half ….. Come on you baggies.
we have to go to St Mary’s on Friday with an advantage to force them onto the back foot. If we are level or worse then we have to attack them and with our front line I’d fear the worst. Fingers crossed.
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - 4evaabaggie - 12-05-2024
FT 0-0.
Makes it difficult on Friday but at least it lowers the pressure and the expectation.
Nobody expected us to win the tie and a one off away game at Southampton is going to be hard.
The pressure will be all on them though.
Come on you Baggies.
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - 4evaabaggie - 12-05-2024
Did not watch the game, only monitored on a phone app, I refuse to fund the sky bias, I read on a write up that Grady was hauled down but the ref took the easy option and awarded a corner. Anyone see it? Was it a penalty? Have we been hard done by again?
Looking at the player scores for the game …. We played with ten men.
BTA only given a score of 4 out of 10.
He has been a liability these last few games, missing chances, a red card and it sounds like a disappearing act today. Maybe it’s time to give Maja a start at St Mary’s, give saints something different to worry about.
RE: WBA - Playoffs Thread - Stairs - 12-05-2024
No penalty. BTA should have passed in first half and a clear goal scoring opportunity was there.
It’s bad we rely so much on him. Love his energy. But he misses goals