A few thoughts

First appearance of the season for me today... and first trip to The Hawthorns.

- I think Hooper is a really good player. He made a lot of intelligent runs, particularly noticeable in the first half, but our midfield unfortunately lacked the vision to feed the ball in behind for him. Given a run in the team he'll undoubtedly be a regular scorer.

- Fer is not a left midfielder, however, he could still do the basics required in that position better than he did today. Looked lazy at times and didn't seem to want to track his man back, who would regularly get the run on him. Keep him in the middle please Chris.

- Passing was very laboured/safe. First thought of the midfield is generally to look to pass sideways rather than getting their head up and seeing what options are on further forward. Gives teams chance to reorganise so it's harder to break them down. There was generally an option on to play over the top/down the side in to Redmond or Hooper and get behind them but, until we were really trying to counter attack towards the end, it wasn't taken. More urgency/vision required.

- Johnson seemed to be up for it and was the most aggressive at closing them down. Great commitment. Howson had a good game.

- No idea how we won the match given the number of chances West Brom had! Thankfully (I think), they were attacking the far end from away fans in the second half so it wasn't clear just how good some of their chances were!

- Redmond's decision making will improve as he plays more and more Prem football. Such an exciting player, skips past his full-back with incredible ease, brilliant to watch. I think him being in the team and only a year older than Murphy Bros will inspire them, which can only be a good thing.

- Ruddy made some excellent saves. At times I felt he could've been more commanding and come for a couple of balls in that caused us problems. Still not at his best but not far off.

- Two nice goals. First time I've seen us win away since we returned to the Prem. Wonderful! My last two games have been West Brom H and A so 6-0 aggregate win. Must make the effort to get to some more games!!

Onwards and upwards......

Posted By: JD3, Dec 7, 22:47:01