[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

It's been a far-from-ideal start to the season, and really, the best you can say about Albion in this last week is that we're off the mark and off the bottom. To follow our get-out-of-jail act at the City Ground on Tuesday night we're staying on the road with a visit to Norfolk, where we'll hopefully be looking to replicate the way we ended our last match, rather than the way we began it and continued it for eighty minutes.

Aside from having a surname that sounds like the noise I made when Forest scored the other night, Norwich boss Daniel Farke hasn't worked any major miracles thus far at Carrow Road. Last year the Canaries went from being early-season outsiders for promotion to an unremarkable mid-table finish, and they opened this season by snatching a point off Blues with a last-gasp equaliser. However, with the way Albion are playing right now, it's fair to say that we underestimate any opposition at our peril.

Irrespective of what (if anything) happens on the transfer front, we need to seriously up the tempo of our game and start playing with some urgency and creativity again. I do think we've got the attacking players to do it, though the centre of the park remains a huge weak spot, and I'd give an arm and a leg for the 2010 midfield triangle of Mulumbu, Jara and Dorrans again. Maybe the team just needs time to gel, though if that's the case, it'd better be some fast-acting Brylcreem, because the last thing we need in the aftermath of relegation is a winless streak.

[WBA-Josh]

I’d like to see the following team:

In possession:

Johnstone
Dawson - Bartley - Hegazi
Phillips - Livermore - Barry - Gibbs
Morrison - Barnes
Gayle

Out of possession:

Johnstone
Dawson - Bartley - Hegazi - Gibbs
Phillips - Livermore - Barry - Barnes
Morrison
Gayle

Subs - Myhill, Adarabioyo, Townsend, Brunt, Harper, Burke, Rodriguez

---

What I expect Big Dave to play is Nyom in for Adarabioyo at right back and Gayle in for Morrison in a 4-4-2.

Johnstone
Nyom - Bartley - Hegazi - Gibbs
Phillips - Livermore - Brunt - Barnes
Gayle - Rodriguez

Subs - Myhill, Adarabioyo, Townsend, Barry, Burke, Morrison, Robson-Kanu

[Beefy 1965]

Will lose all respect for Albion tomorrow if we don’t rock up there with anything but our green and yellow kit and make Norwich wear their away kit.

[WBA-Josh]

Looks like I called Big Dave’s team spot on.

Bloody 442.

[drewks]

Personally I'm v hopeful.... to me (yup, l know I'm not Josh) that team looks solid, mobile, and could do some damage up front.

(0 - 0 then )

[Beefy 1965]

Still no Dawson ??
Same CM pair

[WBA-Josh]

Personally I'm v hopeful.... to me (yup, l know I'm not Josh) that team looks solid, mobile, and could do some damage up front.

(0 - 0 then   )

I agree that the team looks good and should provide problems going forward but my problem is if we’re playing 4-4-2 away at a team who are playing 4-1-4-1, we could be overrun in the centre of the pitch especially if Norwich’s wingers tuck inside to overload the centre. One of the wingers is a striker and the other is playing inverted so there’s a good chance of it happening.

I hope that Big Dave is actually playing Barnes centrally with Rodriguez out wide but I doubt it. Anyway, I hope we can get a good result today and start the ball rolling.

[SomersetBaggie]

Here we go again......0-1 and being outplayed by Norwich

[4evaabaggie]

1 - 0 down ..... bad feeling this could be a 4 - 0 defeat.

[BaggieMan]

Here we go again......0-1 and being outplayed by Norwich

There’s a shock.... why am I not surprised