[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Murder at the Vicarage: Albion's first-ever competitive trip to Watford ends in a 3-0 defeat, 11th September 1983

After last weekend's debacle against Huddersfield, relegation now seems not so much a matter of "if" but "when", and "in what manner". We remain seven points adrift, and apparently bereft of the will or wherewithal to survive. Alan Pardew remains at the helm for now, but is showing precious little to suggest that he's the man to lead us into May and beyond. Daniel Sturridge, our last great hope, is making Victor Anichebe look like the Bionic Man. Short of cloning a team of Chris Brunts, Albion are running out of options.

If there's a sniff of hope for us at Vicarage Road this Saturday, it may lie in the fact that a team approaching safety for the season could get complacent and slip up, allowing us to capitalise. However, Watford are still a couple of wins away from effective safety, and even if they weren't, there's little to suggest that the manager and players have it in them to deliver any kind of upset.

Not "if" but "when", and "in what manner". It'd be nice to imagine that after Brunty's intervention last weekend, some of this lot might just be shamed into showing some fight. We'll see.