S.O.S: WBA

On Saturday we visited sunny Baggieland looking for our third away win against WBA in a row. They hadn’t lost at home in 15 games. Our Lads had something to say about that…

Last week I got roped in to a last minute stag do to Edinburgh which meant I had to follow the match against Millwall via the odd glimpse at Sky Sports, the occasional gleg at my phone and a very brief attempt to stream it on a fellow Mackem's device. Worth a go, Stainy. The only live part of the match we actually saw was LO9's 'shot on target'. We won though. Anyway, that's last weeks 'report' done. On to this weeks...

My over-abiding memory of visits via the M5 was DickCanios 'chin up' gesture after a pasting from the Baggies. There aren't enough nutters in today's football in my opinion, but even for me loco Paulo was a bit much. Apart from his famous knee slide I'm pretty sure Fatha wore a permanent wince throughout his whole tenure. I do have another memory but we'll get on to that later. Speaking of dismissal, we also brushed paths with the extremely affable Tony Mowbray. Pretty much the polar opposite of the previously mentioned Pazzo. Tony's departure was frustrating for many fans. I think I've said this before, but he was probably my favourite manager in terms of his banter at press conferences. No nonsense and good craic to boot. His man management was also second to none, see file marked “Amad”.

This week work got in the way of me catching any of the first half. Stupid work. Luckily Trai had again chosen to take things into his own hands and doubled down on last weeks goal with a delightful dead ball drive. He meant it, honest. I made it home in time to catch the second half start, due to a whopping amount of added time. After a quick text to Fatha I found out this was down to there being more physios on the pitch than players. What he called "A bit World-Cup-ish". Sadly this type of shenanigans is totally normal in todays game.

Mowatt mowed our players down left right and centre. This highlighted the start of the ref’s decline in the second half. I can only assume the ref is recovering from recent cataract surgery as he also booked Rigg for being fouled. Mr Magoo followed up his short-sightedness and failed to spot Bartley's blatant two-footer on Wilson. The ref may as well have put a blue and white shirt on after Eli was felled by a tactical falling over. The man in black dished out three yellows in as many minutes to our players, around the hour mark. I hate going on about this kind of this but the bloke’s clearly been on the pop.

The Throstles went full throttle. Patterson got a battering but he held onto his clean sheet with both of his massive hands. Enzo and Hjelde came on for Roberts and Browne. It was good to see Le Fee back at it. Once again though, we'd have to give him a few games before he got up to speed. That being said he still manged to put Issy through on goal within a few minutes of being on the pitch.

After a mere 4 minutes added time the whistle went and the points were ours. Not a fantastic display by any standards but the lads got the job done and kept the buggers out. We definitely need to pick up the pace to see the final games of the season out. Rigg looked knackered at full time, however what we need now is to give the Lads all the positivity we can. They play like dynamite when we're fully behind them so lets keep that going. Back-to-back victories. Three points is three points. I checked.

Keep the faith,

GPD