30-01-2020, 19:59
![[Image: WBALuton.png]](https://i.ibb.co/P9KXgCX/WBALuton.png)
At this point, it feels like there's something to be said for telling the team - and perhaps the manager too - that every match between now and May is a cup tie. It's not far off being the truth. For six weeks and counting, the only time we've been able to muster assured performances and deliver wins to go with them is in the FA Cup, and in the meantime, our promotion cushion has gone up in smoke. Tuesday night's defeat at Cardiff was as bad a showing and as self-inflicted a defeat as anything we saw when Big Dave's train left the rails last year. As a more experienced manager, I hope that Slaven Bilic will be able to turn it round. I know that the problem lies partly in our injuries and suspensions, as well as the obvious on-field weaknesses that are hopefully being addressed by our recruitment in the last days of the transfer window. But just as Roberto Di Matteo found a way to "cowboy up" this time ten years ago, when our promotion was looking threatened during a very bad patch, and grind out the necessary wins to keep momentum going - even without the strongest of teams - so Bilic needs to find that Stetson and six-shooter and lay down the law while there's still time.
Saturday offers him the chance against bottom-of-the-table Luton; not as friendly a prospect as we might like, as we've been woeful against relegation battlers at times this season, and the Hatters beat ten-man Derby on Tuesday night to break a string of five straight defeats. There's no better time for them to visit the Hawthorns and get a result, and if they do so, we could find ourselves dropping out of the top two for the first time in months. With a stroke of deja vu, it would be Nottingham Forest replacing us there. There's no greater sign that it's time for the spirit of 2010 to make a comeback.
"I would rather spend a holiday in Tuscany than in the Black Country, but if I were compelled to choose between living in West Bromwich or Florence, I should make straight for West Bromwich." - J.B. Priestley
