[talkSAFT]

I'm getting a bit worried about Yacob. Fair enough, he does break up opposition attacks quite regularly. But he has to be careful! (Jara was similar, but he cost us big at Blackpool a few years back, and the Management didn't give him another chance - I can see TP doing the same.)
Back to Yacob: his passing is poor at times, and I'd rather have kept Mulumbu whose only criticism was his passing.
And what about the time yesterday (1st half) when the ball broke to him from the corner? he was in yards and it was exactly set up for him to crack at goal. Every 6 year-old to 46 year-old would instinctively have belted it at goal, and Yacob would surely have scored....but he chose to pass it sideways. What was the matter with him?

[4evaabaggie]

Well said stairs, I believe we all hope and want that too, titles are won on the back of a sound defence, not just goal scoring, no good iscoring three if you let in four, not to long ago the Albion sang " we only need one goal ", and so it was ..... a lot of one nils but a lot of three points and promotion .......

Keep the faith, suffer a little now and tomorrow the sun will come out and we can bask in the glory we crave and deserve .... please please please let that be the case.

And more to the point ...... the dirty vile lost again and are waist deep in the brown stuff. I love local derbies but hope the vile sink and disappear without trace. Bring back the blues and the bcd.

Boring Boing Baggies ...... Albion til I die (not dire)

[BaggieMan]

What is most pleasing about this victory is the fact that the anti-pulis brigade are almost as gutted as the Sunderland fans

Never thought you would post anything so stupid BC..... Have you been drinking or something ?

[St Charles Owl]

On the drive home from the match I listened to BBC606.

One Albion fan called in to say he would rather we played pretty football in Division 1 than watch the current style of play in the Premier League.

Many called in to say clubs such as Bolton, Portsmouth etc would love to swap pretty football for being in the Premiership. Be careful what you ask for.

Maybe we can do a deal with you, we will happily watch crap football in the Premier League!!!!  It's been 15 years now since we were up in the top flight but we finally have a wealthy owner and we are starting our journey back, but if some of your fans want to just circumvent the formalities of promotion and relegation then can someone pass on the number of the Hillsborough switchboard to Jeremy please??

Seriously, I accept that some fans of football in general think the game has sold its soul to Sky and the Premier League, most fans still want to see their team in the top flight on a consistent basis but unfortunately once you drop out of the top flight it is so hard to get back up again!!  The parachute payment help for sure but the championship is not where you want to be.  Keep faith with Pulis, it won't be pretty but you will likely stay up.

[4evaabaggie]

Cheers St Charles, an independent perspective, it's not good it's not enjoyable, but the only way to change it now is to earn the money, the prem is where the money is. Chelski and Man City bought their places at the top, the financial fair play prevents new money men doing the same, so you have to be in it to win it ...... a long hard fight ahead, many horrible battles but hopefully in the end real football and real football fans will win out.

[BC Baggie]

What is most pleasing about this victory is the fact that the anti-pulis brigade are almost as gutted as the Sunderland fans :)

Never thought you would post anything so stupid BC..... Have you been drinking or something ?

Some people were willing to take a loss if it meant getting rid of Pulis, I find this ridiculous. 

[Luke_East_Baggie]

I wouldn't mind Pulis style to be fair if we had more width and he gave the wide / creative players a more free role.

Press like crazy without the ball, beat players, throw crosses into the box etc, even long ball smattered in there. The thing is everyone is so petrified of being out of position and being so defensive we hardly do any of the things listed above.

I can almost guarantee that if Sess where he beat those 2 men down the line had lost the ball and they had countered and scored, or if sess was in McLeans position when he back heel rolled it back for brunt to cross for the goal. If that was sess and he had messed it up, we wouldn't have seen him in an albion shirt under pulis again, because he would of left space for them to counter into.

The most frustrating thing for me is 7 (goalie, 4cbs, 2cdms) behind the ball at ALL TIMES and he's still getting Rondon / McLean / Mcmanaman / berahino / sessegnon (whoever is playing) running back 40 yards to help out. The lack of passes into Rondon (lofted or to feet) when the nearest player is 25 yards + away is laughable, every game.

We need people with more energy In the middle instead if Fletcher and/or yacob. A mulumbu or toure or Walters or anyone to drive the rest of the team.

[aries22]

Someone at the game said the Sunderland fans had a massive poppy, sang god save the queen and **** the ira.

That would actually be very funny and just what McClean deserves after insulting the country that provides his huge wages and the English countrymen whose flag he insulted.

---

I am not happy that 'at the moment' it's a little dire, but I'll take a gradual development under TP in the Premiership v relegation. It might be a few season of this (with slight improvements as we go) but I am sticking with the TP/JP plan.

The trouble as I see it though Stairs is that we are not that much a 'developing' team or club, we've been in this division for six years now and we seem to have gone backwards since the Steve Clarke and Roy Hodgson days - our players are better than the ones we had then but the football, and the approach to playing football, is pathetic.

---

I would rather watch total football but we tried that when we first got promoted to the premier, nice to watch but hard to take the six nil thumpings and the yoyo tag, if we can continue to consolidate and improve the quality so that we can challenge towards the top then great. But why oh why does it take so long ..... look at palace even wet sham playing reasonable football in top ten. They have an advantage being in London, easier to attract players but what happened to all our rough diamonds .......

Add Leicester to that list - they must be great to watch compared to Albion.

[valpayne]

We did not take the game to Man City on the opening day. That is just simply not true. It was one in a long succession of insipid, listless performances, but at least then we had the excuse of playing someone good.
And this 'hoofball vs relegation' debate is to some extent a false dichotomy. I realise you have to play with a degree of caution and cannot leave yourself too open, but we go so far the other way it is unbelievable. I simply don't accept that this is the only way these players can play. Particularly when we are against teams no better than us.
My friend is a Barnsley fan and we saw them play the other week, and in all honesty they were far better than us at stringing 3-4 passes together, so I also don't accept that all lower league football is hoofball.
Come on people, we all deserve better than the football that is being served up to us at the moment. The bottom line is that it is simply not fun to watch.

forgive me may but I didn't see the city game so what I meant was TP apologised after the game coz he said he went for a formation to attack city and got it wrong which actually reinforces my point.

secondly I'm fairly sure we have strung 3 or 4 passes together many times this season but some people choose to focus on negatives 

I've played football briefly for a lower league team just after I left school (I left my home town to Pursue a different career in London) what I remember distinctly was how much harder every aspect of the game was compared to school and local boys teams training was harder fitness levels higher tackling was tougher the pace quicker so whilst I'm sure Barnsley can play some pretty stuff in a lower division against teams of similar standing? year in year out the cup competitions prove its a different level and more often than not a premier league team wins those competitions with occasional exception from the championship  

My main point is I do not want to see my team in the lower leagues even if it's only for one selfish reason which is I can't get to games any more as I work most weekends in London and I'm not very well paid so I rely on sky for all my WBA viewing 

i do agree theres issues with the way we're playing and I would like to see serious improvement but it is what it is we don't attract the big names so we don't have players that can run rings round other teams of similar stature 

[drewks]

Great debates on here folks; the very reason why this forum is simply THE BEST!