It's been a busy couple of months for the Baggies - so I've summarised key events that have happened so far this year. Having lost to local rivals Aston Villa it was time to turn our eyes to the FA cup and a welcome break from all the strain that the relegation battle puts on everyone involved with the football club.  | | Michael Davis with family and friends |
So on Saturday the 7th of January we played Reading, Run away leaders of the Championship and a potential banana skin for the Albion. The only word that can describe the match is tedious, with both goals coming from penalties in the last ten minutes of the game it was definitely a game to forget for Baggies and royals fans alike and a fair result with a replay ten days later. Next up was our first away trip of 2006 and who would have thought that this time last year Albion would have been going into the game as major under dogs to a team that was inside the top six at the time. I know for one I wouldn’t have predicted how well Wigan were going to do. This shows teams in the Premiership that you DON’T need eleven fantastic individuals as long as you’ve got a team of good professionals that will fight for each other then you’ve got a great chance of avoiding relegation and even sneaking a European place. Back to the Wigan game though, and having had Big Dave sent off at the end of the first half for what was two very clumsy yellow cards for such an excellent professional. With that happening Robson made a KEY decision in taking off Nathan Ellington and replacing him with our left footed right back Martin Albrectsen. This decision was greeted by Albion fans with a chorus of boo’s. This would effectively change though with all the culprits being left red faced by Albion picking up their first away win of the season which was no doubt down to an excellent finish from Robson’s super sub and an unbelievable save from our Pole in goal. Then came the replay against Reading with a major injury crisis striking Albion, we had to call upon 5 youth players with jarred Hodgkiss coming away in my eyes with the man of the match award for what on his full debut for Albion was an outstanding performance from the youngster. Never the less we ran out losers in the match having let an early 2-0 lead slip away and with an amazing hour performance from one reading individual Leroy Lita scoring a hat-rick and making the final score 3-2 AET. Albion were left licking our wounds as the likes of Davies, Hodgkiss, Wallwork and Carter were left injured and hurt by events that had happened on the pitch that night. Having suffered that defeat earlier in the week against Reading it wasn’t the best way to go into a game that any Albion fan would expect us to win against Sunderland who are rock bottom of the premiership starring relegation in the face unless they can emulate what we achieved last season. With the Sunderland game being very similar to the Reading one a few weeks earlier, you could tell by about the hour mark that we weren’t going to win this game, the more we pushed for the all important goal the more dangerous Sunderland looked and with the only goal of the game coming from a BLATENT foul on Darren Carter Sunderland snatched 3 points from under our noses. With the Sunderland goal came a moment that made me as an Albion fan ashamed to support my team! As sections of the crowd started turning on one player in particular for his below par performances this season, I became sickened by how some people can all themselves FANS! As ‘fans’ started to boo Carter on every touch he got of the ball, yes ok he hasn’t performed to what we expected from him but by booing the poor lad what were we expecting to achieve? Were we trying to shatter his confidence completely? People might find this statement hard to take but no matter how poor a player performs for your team you shouldn’t boo them. It wasn’t Wallworks fault earlier in the season that we wasn’t winning, it wasn’t Campbell’s fault that we wasn’t performing to our standard and it wasn’t solely down to Carter for the fact we lost against Sunderland! Our fans get on our players and managing staffs backs to easy, we’re outside the relegation zone with our fate in our own hands, I know if someone had of offered it to me at the start of the season I’d have bitten their hand off. Some fans just expect too much. After an FA cup break we faced a tough trip to Charlton on what was the night the transfer window would close. With rumours flying around about players signing and players leaving it was the news of Robert Earnshaw moving to Norwich that bugged me the most. Ok Albion fans we got our money back on him and even made a small profit but were left with a very weak strike force now to say the least. I know people have different opinions on Earnie himself but when we play to his game he does score goals, and proved that for Norwich last week. Earnie is the type of player that I would call a ‘Hero’ or a ‘Fans favourite’ which Albion have lacked since the likes of Super Bob, Richard Sneekes and Lee Hughes. To the Charlton match itself and with an outstanding performance from a man who hasn’t featured heavily for the Albion this season in Andy Johnson. With Albion and Charlton both having two or three chances in the first half we could have gone in at 3-3 had the finishing been better. But having both missed key chances a draw was a fair result and a point at The Valley was a very good point if we could win our game against Blackburn on the Saturday. With new signing Nigel Quashie coming straight into the squad it was good to see Albion spraying ball’s across the pitch to each other, and one of those balls would prove crucial with Campbell latching onto it and tucking it past Friedel. It’s always good when you’ve got a 2-0 lead and when Greening fired in from the edge of the area we never looked like conceding. Our great performance was rewarded with 3 points and a big gap opened up between us and the chasing pack. Albion were all of a sudden looking in a really good position. However a few people’s minds would have changed by the end of the Fulham game. I think it’s best if we forget about the result of the Fulham game with Albion never really turning up on the day and with our defence at sixes and sevens we did look awful. But a bad result was apologised for by the Albion manager and he then went on to praise the magnificent fans that travelled down to London. Having witnessed amazing scenes in the Albion end you wouldn’t have been mistaken if you’d of thought that Albion were winning 6-1. Fans sang their hearts out all game and in the end it turned into more of a party with fans just trying to enjoy the day if anything. Having lost 6-1 Albion were then taking the players on a vacation to Dubai so they could bond and recharge their batteries. People disagreed with this and thought that it was a disgrace after the last performance, but they had a bad day at the office they know that if it happens again then theirs obviously something wrong. I wasn’t bothered by the fact that they were going away as a break did the players wonders last season and it could do the same this season. One bit of negativity leaked to the press though with news that a group of Albion players had let off a fire extinguisher in a five star hotel, some fans are disgusted with this behaviour but once again I could think of one term to describe this act ‘Boys will be boys’ as every boy or man does stupid things that they regret in their lives and this was just a silly prank that went to far. It got blown out of all proportion by the media and the players paid for the damage and said sorry. Matter closed in my eyes. Now a tough game against a team around us in Middlesbrough and my thoughts
on this game aren’t hopeful as we never do good in these sort of six pointers. I think this game has 0-0 written all over it. Boing Boing - Mike | 
