WBA Saturday

[Bannerman]

I’ve watched WBA 3 times on the box in the last couple of months and they’ve had an undeserved late draw due to a hand-ball goal, a late win via an illegal dive penalty and scraped a late win tonight after QPR go down to 10. They’ve not been that good in any game but seem to have so much feckin spawn it’s untrue.

I really hope that we can turn the tables on Saturday, it’d be great to score a late sickener against them, we’re due to.

Listened to an interview with Billy Sharp on Radio Sheffield a week or so after the Rotherham away game. He said that he was annoyed that we hadn't won that match because we didn't deserve to win it.

I knew ( and I'm sure you do ) exactly what he meant, every game we have won this season we deserved to win. We have lost points when our performance didn't warrant us losing.

Teams that win promotion tend to have a habit of picking up points when they don't deserve it on the basis of their performance on the day.

I think that has an effect on team moral, they begin to think it's their year, the footballing Gods are on their side and that leads to a never say die attitude which tends to get results with late goals.

Having said that, I have a lot of faith in Wilder and Knill and their ability to produce results against the odds. If we do make it this season we'll have fully deserved it.

It's my birthday on Saturday so I'm hoping for a nice present.

I'll take a draw, I'm not greedy

 

[Sheffsteel]

Think the game will be pretty similiar to the Villa game but instead of 3-0 up we’ll be 2-0 up and coasting.
Think we’ll outplay them most of the match, then sit back the last 10 minutes, they’ll pull a very late goal back
Panick will set in amongst our fans but we’ll hold on for a very impressive 2-1 win.
The Sky pundits will be swooning over our style and the West Brom fans will be saying that’s the worse they’ve played all season. Most of their fans will say they’ve no chance of top 2 saying they were outclassed on their own patch.
Our fans will be going overboard saying we’ll win the league and how we’ll massacre Wednesday
And football being what it is, we either draw or lose in the derby.

 

[Harry's Game]

I think we will be leading three nil after 78 minutes when West Brom are reduced to seven men and the game called off.

However we won’t get to keep the three points as the League will rule the game has to be replayed.

We will lose the rearranged fixture one nil.

 

[Stretch]

After seeing how we are playing now, including through a period of significant squad rotation, I am confident that we can beat anyone.

However should we slip up on Saturday, we can bounce [no pun intended] back by hammering that shower in the rusty suburbs, whilst West Brom have Leeds to contend with. We could easily claw points off both of them.

As it stands though, I do fancy us.

 

[Ranmoorblade]

Will be interesting to see if Gayle comes straight back in after 3 strikers all scoring in the last two games.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

We are the best team in the league

How are Norwich top then?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

How are Norwich top then?

You tell me, fucked if I know.

 

[Ranmoorblade]

How are Norwich top then?

The best team will be top at the end of the season.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

The best team will be top at the end of the season.

Exactly.

So if you follow the same logic Norwich are currently the best team in the division.

 

[Pedro's Winger]

The best team I’ve seen at the lane this season by a country mile is us.

Not when we played West Brom.

 

[bladesince64]

We will beat West Brom 3-0 on Satdi. Madine and Billy (2).
Everybody keeps watching the teams around the top 3/4 playing and then thinking we’ve no chance.
Yet we all (me included) underestimate how good we really are.
We should have beat Norwich away,we pasted Villa away and we could have hammered Reading for 6 or 7 at home.
It’s hard to be a Blade and believe, but this year - I believe.

 

[Ranmoorblade]

Exactly.

So if you follow the same logic Norwich are currently the best team in the division.

At the end of the season and only then will every team have played all other clubs home and away. That's not the case at the moment.

 

[Sheffsteel]

We will beat West Brom 3-0 on Satdi. Madine and Billy (2).
Everybody keeps watching the teams around the top 3/4 playing and then thinking we’ve no chance.
Yet we all (me included) underestimate how good we really are.
We should have beat Norwich away,we pasted Villa away and we could have hammered Reading for 6 or 7 at home.
It’s hard to be a Blade and believe, but this year - I believe.

I’ve watched all the top teams in the Championship fairly regularly on tv
And trying to be fair minded and balanced there’s only Norwich who are our equal, so wouldn’t feel confident in a one-off match.
However I honestly believe we have the edge on all the other promotion contenders and we have plenty of matches left to prove it.
Also our squad and manager have more experience of recent successful promotion battles than any other team at the top.

 

[Champagneblade]

I’ve watched all the top teams in the Championship fairly regularly on tv
And trying to be fair minded and balanced there’s only Norwich who are our equal, so wouldn’t feel confident in a one-off match.
However I honestly believe we have the edge on all the other promotion contenders and we have plenty of matches left to prove it.
Also our squad and manager have more experience of recent successful promotion battles than any other team at the top.

End of the day, goals win promotion.

Nobody, I repeat, nobody, has as good a set of strikers as a collective as we do.

 

[Inter_blade83]

Not when we played West Brom.

2nd half maybe, but first half we should have been 3 or 4 up before they scored. We were superior

 

[Houston_Blade]

Loving all the proclamations of how good we are. Remember when we smashed Villa 4-1 said how good we were then went to shit for a few games?!

 

[Melbourne Blade]

I had no idea they played Qpr yesterday so I'm going for a blades win.
Did anyone watch? Did they have a hard game?

 

[Nicolaus_Copernicus]

The best team I’ve seen at the lane this season by a country mile is us.

Without wishing to embrace your boundless positivity, I’ll admit the best football that I’ve seen at the Lane this season is the first 45 mins we played v. Villa. We’ve not hit that level since mind.

 

[Sheffsteel]

I had no idea they played Qpr yesterday so I'm going for a blades win.
Did anyone watch? Did they have a hard game?

I watched the whole game.
Fairly even match, 2 average teams, both teams decent going forward but both looked dodgy in defence.
QPR’s best player Luke Freeman suffered an injury 10 minutes from time and had to go off
However QPR had already made 3 substitutions, so for the last 10 minutes were down to 10 men.
This was the game changer and for the last 5 minutes it was attack versus defence with QPR sat back parking the bus.
They defended well and will feel unlucky to concede in the 94th minute of 5 minutes of injury time.

Play like they did last night and I believe we’ll beat them by at least 2 clear goals.
Although I can’t believe that’s their normal standard and would expect them to improve against us, also they have their main striker Gayle back from suspension against us and their other good player Philips should return from injury,

 

[Rob86]

Play like they did last night and I believe we’ll beat them by at least 2 clear goals.
Although I can’t believe that’s their normal standard and would expect them to improve against us, also they have their main striker Gayle back from suspension against us.

Agree with the match summary. They also seemed to allow QPR quite a bit of space and the game got quite stretched at times, but QPR just weren’t good enough to capitalise.

I thought they looked very good in the air and dealing with crosses.

For the final QPR hoof, if the player passes it to the lad to his left who has a clear run down field it may well have got them a point. But he didn’t and the ball came back in and the rest is history.

Think we’ll see a better performance from them on Saturday as they are playing better opposition and it also sounded like the pitch was poor last night. They may set up differently, as we might, as it’s a game both teams really do not want to lose, rather than must win.

 

[FleaPitBlade]

I think we can win it but I would also take a draw right now because not losing is most important.

Been saying it for a while; but if we can navigate our way to the final whistle of Leeds away within 2 or 3 points of the top two, it's very much game on.

 

[Sheffsteel]

For the final QPR hoof, if the player passes it to the lad to his left who has a clear run down field it may well have got them a point. But he didn’t and the ball came back in and the rest is history.

I noticed that too.
It was the 93rd minute. QPR virtually had every single player in their penalty box and West Brom also had most of their players close to the QPR box. However the ball broke lose outside the box to a pacey black QPR player (dont know which on), he was in space with most of the West Brom players up field.

I thought sprint forward with the ball and you might find West Bromwich defence are totally out of position to score a break away goal.
But instead the QPR player decided to punt it up field to no one one, giving possesion straight back to WBA.
He should have kept the ball, gone for goal or as a minimum kept possession, drawn the foul to run down the clock.

 

[Harry's Game]

I think we can win it but I would also take a draw right now because not losing is most important.

Been saying it for a while; but if we can navigate our way to the final whistle of Leeds away within 2 or 3 points of the top two, it's very much game on.

It’s a tricky one If both Norwich and Leeds win on Saturday then a draw is not really a good result for either side.

 

[FleaPitBlade]

It’s a tricky one If both Norwich and Leeds win on Saturday then a draw is not really a good result for either side.

There'll be ups, downs and little points gaps opening and closing for the next half a dozen games or more. It's been like that all season.

Looking at the table in the isolation of single results has started sending me mad. So I've tried to stop doing it.

 

[Sheffsteel]

I think we can win it but I would also take a draw right now because not losing is most important.

Been saying it for a while; but if we can navigate our way to the final whistle of Leeds away within 2 or 3 points of the top two, it's very much game on.

My view is that West Brom are similar to Aston Villa but with better strikers
Whereas Leeds are more like us last season, a good team unit playing a fast high tempo game.

We are a better team than West Brom but they have star quality strikers, capable of 1 chance...1 goal.
Confident we’ll have more of the game, create more chances but it could all be down to the finishing and the timing of the goals.

I think Leeds away will be tougher, their crowd will be up for it and they’ll come at us like a whirlwind and try to blow us away.
If we can hang in there, their crowd will start getting frustrated and negative and that’s when we can take advantage.
Think we’ll beat WBA but won’t beat Leeds, maybe a draw.

 

[ChipButtyBlade]

Montero will cause whoever is selected to play on the right side of defence a few headache's.

Look here halfway thru the video he is No7 for Swansea.

 

[GrayBlade]

Lot of postitvity on here.

I noticed that too.
It was the 93rd minute. QPR virtually had every single player in their penalty box and West Brom also had most of their players close to the QPR box. However the ball broke lose outside the box to a pacey black QPR player (dont know which on), he was in space with most of the West Brom players up field.

I thought sprint forward with the ball and you might find West Bromwich defence are totally out of position to score a break away goal.
But instead the QPR player decided to punt it up field to no one one, giving possesion straight back to WBA.
He should have kept the ball, gone for goal or as a minimum kept possession, drawn the foul to run down the clock.

Sounds a bit like Johnston for us against Rotherham.

 

[Maidenhead]

I think we can win it but I would also take a draw right now because not losing is most important.

Been saying it for a while; but if we can navigate our way to the final whistle of Leeds away within 2 or 3 points of the top two, it's very much game on.

Loads more to happen yet and nothing will be won or lost in the next month.

There will be twists and turns and ups and downs for every team.

I've been saying since before Christmas that if we're still in contention in contention on St Patrick's day then it's ours to lose.

By then we will have all our "hardest" fixtures out of the way and a reasonable looking run in on paper, although they do say that nothing is won on paper and there are no easy games.

Up until that day, que sera sera

I agree

 

[Sheffsteel]

Lot of postitvity on here.

Sounds a bit like Johnston for us against Rotherham.

No it was more like the situation with the Billy Sharp last minute 3rd goal at home to Derby last season in our 3-1 win.

Like Derby, West Brom threw caution to the wind in those last 2 or 3 minutes and basically put their whole team deep into the QPR half with their keeper virtually stood on the half way line. There was a goal mouth scramble and it luckily fell to a QPR player outside the box with no one near him with many of the WBA defenders caught out of position.

Great chance of a break away attack, if he had done a Marvin Johnson and gone on a dribble upfield he might have scored
But instead the QPR player panicked and booted it up field straight to the WBA goalie inviting another WBA attack.
QPR were down to 10 men and lost their heads as it became a game of attack versus defence in the last 5 minutes.

 

[ChemEngBlade]

Massive game this one, biggest of the season so far in my opinion. The more daylight between ourselves and 4th place the better we'll fair. Just needs a dip in form for Leeds or Norwich, we keep our cool and we'll be in one of those auto spots