[drewks]

In the 1st half of the season, when AI was struggling, most of this place was up-in-arms, because apparently Irvine could not get results from a 'top half squad' that was 'the best we have had in living memory' including players that have scored in the CL. (If I could be arsed, I would dig out the relevant threads)

Fast-forward a few months and, despite re-inforcements in Jan, we have an aged, dross and unbalanced squad of spineless no-hopers that arn't fit to wear the shirt.

I give up. I really do....

You're right, tidy - we kicked off with loads of optimism as far as the players were concerned (not the OIC tho).......those quality editions, as I recall were
Gamboa, Davidson, Valera, Blanco, Pocognoli, Ideye and Samaras. All of these (maybe not Davidson) seemed to have a good pedigree - but NONE of them have made it into the team at all, apart from a stuttering, misfiring Ideye. That's SEVEN players! 

The finger should be pointed firmly at the recruitment team - the team who, under Garlic, performed very well for a number of years. I suppose the scouting of most of the 'failiures' above was done before they joined but Mr Burton and Mr Day - your days SHOULD be well & truly numbered; we need another huge clearout in the summer and are these people the right ones to oversee it?

[betterthanbaird]

In the 1st half of the season, when AI was struggling, most of this place was up-in-arms, because apparently Irvine could not get results from a 'top half squad' that was 'the best we have had in living memory' including players that have scored in the CL. (If I could be arsed, I would dig out the relevant threads)

Fast-forward a few months and, despite re-inforcements in Jan, we have an aged, dross and unbalanced squad of spineless no-hopers that arn't fit to wear the shirt.

I give up. I really do....

You're right, tidy - we kicked off with loads of optimism as far as the players were concerned (not the OIC tho).......those quality editions, as I recall were
Gamboa, Davidson, Valera, Blanco, Pocognoli, Ideye and Samaras. All of these (maybe not Davidson) seemed to have a good pedigree - but NONE of them have made it into the team at all, apart from a stuttering, misfiring Ideye. That's SEVEN players! 

The finger should be pointed firmly at the recruitment team - the team who, under Garlic, performed very well for a number of years. I suppose the scouting of most of the 'failiures' above was done before they joined but Mr Burton and Mr Day - your days SHOULD be well & truly numbered; we need another huge clearout in the summer and are these people the right ones to oversee it?

Pocognoli has 15 league appearances and was a guaranteed starter for the first half of the season and Varela was clearly good, (I miss him) but far too many signings who did nothing. It would be interesting to compare them with the signings of other teams at a similar level because we all have a few useless signings but surely not as many as us. I'll look at Hull, Villa and Sunderland because they should be most comparable with us, obviously I don't know as much about how well they've done as I do for our signings but I know enough about playing time etc to make a decent judgement.

Villa: Tom Leggett (Southampton) Undisclosed
Isaac Nehemie (Southampton) Undisclosed
Philippe Senderos (Valencia) Free
Joe Cole (West Ham) Free
Kieran Richardson (Fulham) Free
Aly Cissokho (Valencia) Undisclosed
Carlos Sanchez (Elche) Undisclosed
Tom Cleverley (Manchester United) Loan

Never heard of the first two, probably just kids, next two have hardly played, the other four have all played a decent amount even if their quality is questionable.

Hull:Jake Livermore (Tottenham Hotspur) Undisclosed
Robert Snodgrass (Norwich City) Undisclosed
Tom Ince (Blackpool) Free
Andrew Robertson (Dundee United) £2.85m
Harry Maguire (Sheffield United) £2.5m
Michael Dawson (Tottenham Hotspur) Undisclosed
Brian Lenihan (Cork City) Undisclosed
Abel Hernandez (Palermo) Undisclosed
Mohamed Diame (West Ham United) Undisclosed
Gaston Ramirez (Southampton) Loan
Hatem Ben Arfa (Newcastle United) Loan

3 of them have done quite a lot, 2 have done a bit, 2 have been injured most the season and the other 4 have flopped so far. Not much better than us imo.

Sunderland: Jordi Gomez (Wigan Athletic) Free
Billy Jones (West Bromwich Albion) Free
Costel Pantilimon (Manchester City) Free
Patrick van Aanholt (Chelsea) Undisclosed
Jack Rodwell (Manchester City) Undisclosed
Santiago Vergini (Estudiantes) Loan
Will Buckley (Brighton & Hove Albion) Undisclosed
Sebastian Coates (Liverpool) Loan
Ricardo Alvarez (Inter Milan) Loan

About half have played a lot and the rest have played a decent amount - hardly at all. Probably better than us in terms of playing time.

WBA: Craig Gardner (Sunderland) Free
Joleon Lescott (Man City) Free
Chris Baird (Burnley) Free
Sebastien Pocognoli (Hannover) Undisclosed
Brown Ideye (Dynamo Kiev) Undisclosed
Andre Wisdom (Liverpool) Loan
Jason Davidson (Heracles Almelo) Undisclosed
Cristian Gamboa (Rosenborg) Undisclosed
Georgios Samaras (Celtic) Free
Silvestre Varela (Porto) Loan
Sebastien Blanco (Metalist Kharkiv) Undisclosed

The bottom 5 have barely played, Pocognoli was a regular but doesn't feature now (same for Wisdom), Baird has featured more throughout the season, Ideye, Lescott and Gardner have been regulars.

I hope this helps everyone to compare the standard of our signings and our recruitment department with similar clubs, and in terms of playing time we've done badly imo and qualitywise we've been similar to the other teams because all 4 of these have done badly.

[valpayne]

I just took a look at the 6 teams fixtures below us and they're all rather interesting 4 of the 6 have plenty of top teams to play and the two at the bottom have a fair few 6 pointers that means they will cancel each other out one way or another. Theirs life in the old dog yet ;-)

---

villa to play liverpool man c everton west ham southampton and burnley
sunderland to play stoke southampton everton leicester arsenal chelsea
hull to play palace liverpool arsenal burnley tottenham man u
qpr to play west ham liverpool man c newc leicester (5 games only)
burnley to play everton leicester west ham hull stoke villa
Leicester to play swansea burnley chelsea newcastle southampton sunderland QPR (7 games)

The bottom three need 3 wins whilst we lose 3 to overtake us QPR and Leicester have won 2 in their last 10 games and Burnley only 1 QPR managed 7 pts in those 10 games Burnley 6pts and leicester 8pts

Makes interesting reading when you look at it closely doesn't it?

[tidy]

I just took a look at the 6 teams fixtures below us and they're all rather interesting 4 of the 6 have plenty of top teams to play and the two at the bottom have a fair few 6 pointers that means they will cancel each other out one way or another. Theirs life in the old dog yet ;-)

---

villa to play liverpool man c everton west ham southampton and burnley
sunderland to play stoke southampton everton leicester arsenal chelsea
hull to play palace liverpool arsenal burnley tottenham man u
qpr to play west ham liverpool man c newc leicester (5 games only)
burnley to play everton leicester west ham hull stoke villa
Leicester to play swansea burnley chelsea newcastle southampton sunderland QPR (7 games)

The bottom three need 3 wins whilst we lose 3 to overtake us QPR and Leicester have won 2 in their last 10 games and Burnley only 1 QPR managed 7 pts in those 10 games Burnley 6pts and leicester 8pts

Makes interesting reading when you look at it closely doesn't it?

It's quite sad and frustrating that it has come to looking towards other teams fixtures to hope we can stay up, especially after the 'guarentee' of survival with our new manager who has never been relegated.

Stranger things have happened at the Albion and there may be some more twists to come with Cluelis. A point at high-flying Palace? A win at Newcastle (about the only team worse than us), bonus points v's Chelsea, Liverpool, Utd or Arsenal?

Fingers crossed we can achieve survival under our own steam.

[Stairs]

The end of season is always hell. I am disappointed with recent results but at this stage can hardly blame TP. He needs the summer, a transfer window and a season to fire his squad at.

We should look around us. QPR beat us, but they also nearly got a point at Chelsea. Burnley got a result at Man City.

Teams are like rats in a corner. They are fighting for their life. Maybe WBA relaxed a little but I think they know now that it's not all over (I personally think we are safe) and will raise their game. A draw against Palace or Man Utd or Arsenal is possible as is a draw or even a sin v Newcastle.

It's a weird time. Hopefully a few more weeks and we will be able to relax and look to a squad transformation - maybe even a new owner and a little more in the transfer kitty.

[betterthanbaird]

Fair points but one of my concerns is that the QPR loss was meant to be the wake up call, to start playing, how many games will we lose before it clicks?

[tidy]

Fair points but one of my concerns is that the QPR loss was meant to be the wake up call, to start playing, how many games will we lose before it clicks?

Absolutely true.

The 'wake up' was losing TWICE in a week to a shite Villa. We put that down to it being derbies. We then got another 'wake up' when we embarrased ourselves at City with one of the worst displays by a so-called premier league team seen in recent years. 68 attempts by City v's our 5 (near the end of the game after City got bored).
Our 'wake up' v's 2nd bottom and 3 certain points QPR turned into a rout...for them. This was a QPR team, remember, that had only won ONCE away from home all season. Our alarm failed to go off!
Wide eyed and bushy tailed for the visit of bottom of the league Lesta? Fresh as a daisy on the 'biggest day' in Albions history celebrating a Baggies Great?....That'll be a big feckin NO then!

Cluelis and his band of square pegs and round holes need a very early night on Friday otherwise this prem dream will properly turn into a nightmare.

[aries22]

I've read through all the comments on this thread. Correct me if I'm wrong, but no one has ever called Tony Pulis the Messiah, and no one has ever said he will guarantee us our PL safety.

For the all the Pulis critics, I have two questions: 1. would you have kept Alan Irvine, and 2. if not, who else would you have appointed at the time?

I championed Pulis's appointment back in August on JA606 when he left Palace, and I did so on two grounds: 1. Alan Irvine was out of his depth in the PL, and 2. Pulis knows, or I believe he knows, how to get the best out of a squad.

He's made mistakes, such as bringing Olsson on against Leicester, but show me a PL manager, apart from maybe Mourinho, who hasn't made mistakes. Both Pulis and Alan Irvine inherited a squad of players they both saw had deficiencies in it - the left backs, the right backs. You don't seriously believe do you that Pulis plays four CBs simply because he prefers big lads at the back? He's got to be doing it because he doesn't think the LBs and RBs are good enough. That points us towards Terry Burton and Mervyn Day, Day to a lesser extent, because he arrived at the club after we had made our summer acquisitions. But I can't see what difference either man has made to the successful running of our club, and that's a question I'd love to put to both of them and Jeremy Peace.

The last two home defeats have been weekend ruiners, and it remains to be seen whether they cost us our PL status. In my opinion, we are in trouble, and we've got to get something from Palace or Newcastle, but I bet the bottom three teams, who are 7 and 8 points behind us, would happily swap places with us.

[talkSAFT]

You're forgetting, Aries, that Tony Pulis is the HEAD COACH.
That tasks him with making sure the players at his disposal are fit; in the right frame of mind by the Saturday; understand the game plan; get a Churchillian team talk when necessary (eg the Villa and QPR games, and then, if they took no notice of him for those games, he makes it quite clear that he doesn't want them to play as if they couldn't give a toss - and give the ball away 20 to 30 times during the NEXT match!) I've never seen an Albion team play so poorly (within their capabilities) for so many games ON THE TROT.

"Who else at the time" and "keeping Alan Irvine" is irrelevant - those 2 questions are dead and buried.

He is not (officially) in charge of Buying and Selling, but he no doubt had some input when bringing in Fletcher and Manamana, and releasing Varelo, Blanco, Samaras, etc who he could at least have brought into the team if the players at his disposal put in poor performances.

We can only guess that Poco and Gamboa haven't got their hearts in it. Only guess. (Head Coach's job is to sit and talk to them, put an arm round their shoulders or fume at them) Same with Wisdom?
What about Mulumbu? Are we to suppose that his heart's not in it? If so, that's the 1st time in 5-6 years that he hasn't given everything for this Club. He's been far and away our best player over that period without any doubt. He's at his peak (28), and he's exactly what the team needs right now. If he's been carrying an injury for such a long time, the Head Coach should be having stern words with the Medical and Training Staff under his control.

The worst, very worst, example of TP's poor decision-making was on Saturday (at about the 55 minute marK) when, from our 1st forage into the Leicester half of the pitch for 1/2 hour. Morrison, if you remember, had bust a gut to win a freekick on the corner of their box. It was almost a relief for the defenders, and Lescott and GMac were dashing up, motivated by the thought that we could go 3-1 up, and take all the wind out of Leicester's sail......then the Head Coach ordered them back to the 1/2 way line with the purpose of clinging on to that lead for another 35 mins. (And he probably thought that a point would do!) That moment destroyed it for me, and I'm surprised to hear a good word for the bloke. Shocking!

Having said all of that, I'd absolutely love it if he parked the bus for 6 games, and we sneaked another couple of points for safety!

Even if that were the case, if TP was on a 6-month contract just to keep us up, I'd expect JP to go looking for a replacement at the end of May. I know we looked relegation candidates up until he took over. But our mid-season matches have been relatively easy, and we MIGHT have been a lot more adventurous in some of those games, but the last 1/2 dozen games have been much much worse than anything we've witnessed for years. TRY SOMETHING DIFFERENT - or there will be thousands of season-tickets unsold come August.

[aries22]

I'm not forgetting anything, and I believe we'd be bottom now under the previous head coach. And unfortunately, we don't have any quick defenders to guard against counter attacks. Leicester and QPR have some fast players, and expect more of the same at Selhurst Park. Whether or not Pocognoli or Gamboa or Wisdom need an arm around the shoulder or a kick up the backside, if they're not good enough they're not going to make it. I have no idea what the story is behind Mulumbu, but he's got away with a few clumsy challenges in his time, and a red card was no surprise, despite what Joey Barton says.