Having slept on it, and after a few beers to dull the dreaded Man Flu, a bit of clarity hit me.
These are MY views, and obviously others will have different ones.
Most of us follow The Baggies because of a tradition of TRYING to play football in 'the right way'. The problem is, in my 50 years of supporting them, the game has changed - but seemingly we haven't. Trying to play in this way has worked very VERY fleetingly - under RDM briefly, TM briefly, and of course Big Ron.
I would guess that this would be a total of about 4 years if added up; the rest of the time we've tried, but generally failed to play the right way AND get results.
How pi**ed off have we been over the last few years when we've sailed into a 2 goal lead and then thrown it away? How many times? We've had a soft underbelly for years and teams know this. TP being put in charge IMO is a definite statement from JP - NO LONGER, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
We NEED to toughen up. We NEED to stay in the top flight, and whilst nothing is guaranteed I think JP should be applauded for this hugely brave move which is bound to upset some people with it's apparent change of direction for the club.
I realise that some would rather watch us try and play in our traditional way, losing more than we win in WHATEVER league (and IMO we WERE going down), but I'd rather stay in the PL and have a Palace-like TP team to watch, one that has speed, flair and nous, and can sometimes grind out a result when needs be.
I'm pretty sure that we won't be throwing away too many 2-goal leads away now!
These are MY views, and obviously others will have different ones.
Most of us follow The Baggies because of a tradition of TRYING to play football in 'the right way'. The problem is, in my 50 years of supporting them, the game has changed - but seemingly we haven't. Trying to play in this way has worked very VERY fleetingly - under RDM briefly, TM briefly, and of course Big Ron.
I would guess that this would be a total of about 4 years if added up; the rest of the time we've tried, but generally failed to play the right way AND get results.
How pi**ed off have we been over the last few years when we've sailed into a 2 goal lead and then thrown it away? How many times? We've had a soft underbelly for years and teams know this. TP being put in charge IMO is a definite statement from JP - NO LONGER, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
We NEED to toughen up. We NEED to stay in the top flight, and whilst nothing is guaranteed I think JP should be applauded for this hugely brave move which is bound to upset some people with it's apparent change of direction for the club.
I realise that some would rather watch us try and play in our traditional way, losing more than we win in WHATEVER league (and IMO we WERE going down), but I'd rather stay in the PL and have a Palace-like TP team to watch, one that has speed, flair and nous, and can sometimes grind out a result when needs be.
I'm pretty sure that we won't be throwing away too many 2-goal leads away now!