| Saturday 21st November |
Albion |
(2) 4 |
Bristol City |
(0) 1 |
|
| Attendance: |
23,444 |
Thomas 3 |
Grant 85 |
||
| Albion: Carson; Zuiverloon, Meite,
Olsson, Mattock (Cech 30); Brunt, Dorrans (Mulumbu 57), Jara, Thomas; Cox
(Koren 78), Moore Subs (not used): Kiely, Wood, Martis, Texeira |
||
| Booked:Cox | Referee: Michael Oliver |
Reporter: Haydn Thompson |
I'm touching wood as I type this, but with this victory Albion surely began to justify their position as one of the promotion favourites. For the third consecutive game we comfortably beat a team that was in a rich vein of form: Watford were unbeaten in six away games, Leicester had won their previous three and were unbeaten in six; Bristol were unbeaten in seven.
Significantly, in those three games, Roberto Di Matteo has made only one change (Brunt returning from injury to replace Texeira at Leicester). For Bristol City, he named an unchanged Albion side for the first time; with no recent injuries, he seems to have found his best XI.
Not so long ago, our biggest failing - particularly at home - was conceding early goals. But that hasn't happened for five games now.
Not that we didn't have to survive an early scare. The first chance of the game was Albion's though; it came in the first minute, and it fell to Luke Moore. Put through by Dorrans, he shot from the edge of the penalty area but could only hit the side netting.
Before long Bristol were on the attack as Nicky Maynard (reportedly once an Albion target) broke. Olsson shepherded him wide to his left, but with Zuiverloon nowhere to be seen, Scott Carson chose to take over and came to the right hand edge of his area. Olsson and Meite were by now guarding the goal however, and by the time Cole Skuse shot from the far side, Zuiverloon had got back to clear off the line. The ball came out to Dorrans, who raced forward and released Jerome Thomas down the left; Thomas skipped inside the full-back and drove a low shot in at the near post.
The next chance fell to the visitors, from a free kick right in the centre of the Albion half. The ball was headed on from the edge of the box, and Carson had to be on his toes to tip it over from just under the crossbar.
The second goal came in the twelfth minute, when Graham Dorrans found Chris Brunt with an inch-perfect pass over the top of the midfield from deep inside Albion's half. Brunt controlled it well with the outside of his foot, knocked it round the advancing Dean Gerken, and slotted home calmly from a narrow angle on the left.
Bristol were forced to make a substitution five minutes later, and on the half hour Joe Mattock was stretchered off after being injured in a 50-50 challenge. Step up Marek Cech.
There were further chances for both sides in what was proving to be an eventful first half, but at half time the score remained on 2-0.
Second halfWe were barely back in our seats after the interval before Albion got a third. Zuiverloon played Simon Cox in on the right hand edge of the box; Cox's chip over the advancing keeper was definitely going across the face of the goal, but defender Louis Carey (in his 555th appearance for the Robins, no less) stuck out a foot and deflected the ball across the line on the wrong side of the post - from his point of view that is. Cox celebrated, and as I write five days later the Albion official site still credits the goal to him; but the non-partisan press is unanimous in marking it down as an own goal - which is surely the only credible conclusion.
Less than two minutes later though, there was no denying Cox. He left the Bristol defence flat-footed as he latched onto Jerome Thomas's searching cross from the left, prodding it home from six yards.
The referee, who up to now had been drawing praise from our section of the Brummie Road, now seemed to start to take pity on the visitors. He booked Simon Cox for diving when he seemed to have a perfectly good shout for a penalty; and the visitors started to get a series of free kicks for innocuous challenges in dangerous positions. First Maynard blasted wide, then midfielder Paul Hartley drew another excellent save from Carson. But with only seven minutes left, Hartley (sold by Tony Mowbray in July for £1.1 million) got it right with an unstoppable 30-yarder into the top right-hand corner. It's not often I applaud a goal for the opposition, but ... well, we were still 4-1 up - I could afford to be generous.
Albion were indisputably in total control of the game. Di Matteo had even been able to make a couple of substitutions whose only purpose seemed to be to rest two hard-working players and give a run-out to two others. First Mulumbu came on for Dorrans, then with twelve minutes left the reportedly unsettled Robert Koren replaced goalscorer Cox.
Albion's second place in the table had been quite secure even at the start of this game, when we'd had a four-point lead over the four teams that were all on 27 points. By the final whistle (or at least, by the time Barnsley's last-gasp winner went in against Cardiff) we were sitting pretty. Of the four teams behind us, only Leicester won today; the other three all lost. With Newcastle not playing until Monday night, Albion again went to the top of the Championship table for a couple of days at least; Newcastle were only a point behind (and would be two ahead if they won on Monday), but the following pack had fallen away badly over the last few games.
More importantly, Albion are starting to look like genuine promotion contenders - not just in the table, but on the field of play. As already stated, this was our third consecutive victory against an in-form team; and in all honesty we have never looked like losing any one of those three games.
At the moment, Roberto Di Matteo's team seems to combine the best elements of the Megson and Mowbray teams: solid at the back, competitive and creative in midfield, and with goals coming from all over the place.
Even the strikers are starting to find the net now. Well, Simon Cox is ...