Quote Originally Posted by Joy_Division View Post
Looked far better at the back with Dawson in there and we moved the ball about nicely and quickly so all good there. But..................Poncing around at the back with this seemingly fear now of hitting a long ball out of defence caused us unnecessary moments of panic. Also, the goalkeeper appears to have a total phobia of clearing his lines by putting his laces through the ball. On one occasion in the first half, he dinked it over the on rushing forward to Hegazi who had a player on his back on the edge of our box. Then he allowed of all people McClean to chase him down block his clearance which fortunately for us landed on top of the net. Both incidents were totally unforced. Indeed anything Stoke had resembling a chance stemmed from us being careless. But, it was a lot better and Gayle's goals were top drawer. Saddo slunk off contributing nothing and the Dingle reject, missed the penalty, so it all worked out ok in the end but we will get punished if this switching off does not stop. COYB.
Nice one JD for starting this thread as I missed today’s game. I landed at Manchester and came down the M6 listening to the game on Radio Stoke.

Unsurprisingly the commentary team were biased beyond belief. The concerns we have have as Albion supporters were soon picked out by them too. They regularly mentioned how unsure we looked at the back and on one occasion said each defender looked as though they could ‘crumble’ when in possession at any moment such was our uncertainty with the ball.

Clearly we’re an incomplete side, Gayle will only get us out of the brown stuff so often, at the moment, if he were to get injured or suspended I’d be really worried.

I’m not sure whether it’s fair or not at this stage to call us a one man team but I’m starting to fear it.