By LFC Vancouver member Keith Perkins, 5 April 06.

One of the most common of all sports clichés is that “there’s no such thing as a sure thing.” But then again, for us, a visit to the Hawthorns these days must come awfully close. West Bromwich Albion made a short visit to the Premier League for 2002-03, and in the two meetings that season, we were able to beat them 2-0 at home and 6-0 away. After a drop back to the Championship for one year, they came up again for the 2004-05 season, during which time we beat them 3-0 at home and 5-0 away. Strangely, we have found it easier to score goals against them at their ground than at our own. Still, a total of 16-0 over four matches would look like a repeated rout to anyone. West Brom. were in last place in the Premiership at the beginning of 2005, and looked certain to be relegated in May. By an amazing series of results, which went down to the last day of the season, they just managed to survive for another year. Admittedly, they have seen some improvement over last season, especially under the leadership of Bryan Robson, but they are still in real danger of relegation yet again.

Earlier this season, we faced the baggies at home, with a single goal (Crouch) being enough to give us the points. For this match, we should be able to pick up the points without any trouble. If we consider that we have set a pattern of scoring more away than at home against them (11 away vs. 6 at home in the last five meetings), and that our strikers are suddenly in form (half of our last 18 goals scored between four strikers), then we would be forgiven for predicting a goal fest for this one.

Sportsnet broadcast this one as their tape-delayed match at 9:30AM, which means that we are watching the Fox Soccer Channel broadcast, only it’s about ninety minutes later. It also means that the match is to be shown immediately following Soccer Central, with a tight schedule to be met. So, there was no preliminary talk from the commentators; i.e. straight to the kick off. The line up of players was of some interest as we would be without Steven Gerrard as he sits out his one match ban for last week’s red card against Everton. My guess was that Rafa would use the same line-up as remained after that sending off last week (Garcia taking his place on the right), but of course with a second striker up front. It was more than a little surprising then to see Crouch, Fowler, and Cissé out there for the start. The original idea seemed to be to put Cissé out on the right to replace Gerrard, even though this is not his best position by any stretch of the imagination. Sissoko and Alonso could easily control the middle, with Kewell on the left, and the back four of Riise, Carragher, Hyypia, and Finnan. Reina took his place in goal as usual and must have been counting this as another clean sheet well before the start - to add to his 18 others in the Premiership, and 30 in all competitions.

The normal 4-4-2 line-up soon became more of a 4-3-3 with the three strikers pushing forward in support of each other. It only took seven minutes before the strategy paid off. Alonso fed Cissé with a through ball that caught everyone by surprise – including Cissé himself. This time, he used his pace to push the ball further into space while also cutting in on goal. Meanwhile, Fowler made a well timed run down the left flank, on the blind side of the retreating defenders, into the far side of the area. Fortunately, Cissé spotted this and instead of blasting at the ‘keeper as usual, laid the ball off squarely for Fowler to put it away. One up already and surely this is going to be another one-sided match.

The attacks continued with the Baggies finding it difficult to get out of their own half, except for one opportunity that was easily handled by Reina. Somehow, there were no more goals until seven minutes before half-time. Alonso made one of his deadliest passes yet with a 60 or so yard ball up the middle to Cissé. One touch to push the ball forward, and then it was as easy as going around the ‘keeper and slotting the ball into the empty net. Two up at the end of the first-half; and who knows how many more to come in the second.

West Brom. came out flying at the start of the second half, with Gera replacing Kamara in their line-up and causing a few problems. Whatever Bryan Robson had said during the interval was working as they pressed forward again and again. As the second half progressed, West Brom. were starting to realise why we have the second lowest goals against in the League; no matter how hard they tried, they could barely get a shot at goal and only managed four in the entire match. The more they worked at it, the less successful they were as tiredness set in towards the end. It was never going to be easy for them to come back from two down and it looked more and more futile as the clock ticked away. By this point we were simply absorbing the pressure and taking it easy. A few more goals might have been good, and one more clean sheet is great, but the three points is what really matters.

The win now gives us 67 points with five matches still to play, which is already nine better than all of last season. We also have a goal difference of +25 which is a significant improvement over last year’s +11. More significantly for now is the difference between us in third place, and only 12 points out of first, compared to the 37 point gap last season. We are also solidly in third place, with a 12 point cushion on Tottenham in fourth. In fact, we only need a maximum of seven more points to be sure of a place in the top four.

Next up is Bolton this Sunday at Anfield. Then we have the run-in to the end of the season away to Blackburn, then at home to Aston Villa, followed by our last two away at Portsmouth and West Ham. All of these are probable wins based on our recent performances. If we can get maximum points from these remaining games, then we have a good chance of taking second place, especially if Man Ure falter as the season winds down. They may well slip up once or twice as they face an in-form Arse-nil this Sunday, as well as facing away matches at Spurs and Chel$ki in May. We don’t realistically have any hope of winning the League this season, even though it is still mathematically possible. But, a second place finish would still be an excellent way to end a good season.

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