West Brom secured a deserving 4-2 victory over Sunderland and Sunderland's win over Fulham proved to be a false case of optimism for the fans and they resumed their by now usual booing of the team at both half time and full time. In the end, the result and performances in the match showed that their positions in the table are rightly justified. Since I did not notice any new or interesting tactical points in the game, I will go through the goals first in chronological order.
In the 30th minute, Zoltan Gera found a bit of space outside the box and fired in a shot into the goal. Cuellar was slow to close him down though I will say that it is not his fault as the holding midfielders should really be covering that zone. The second goal came in the 43rd minute and this time it was through a mistake by Simon Mignolet. A through ball by Brunt was floated too close to the goalie and it looked like it was going to be an easy take. Unexpectedly, he did not claim it well and the ball was taken away from him by Long who dribbled into goal. The blame should all be put on Mignolet but Long must also be complimented for chasing after a seemingly lost cause and his good close control ability to take the ball away from Mignolet without fouling the goalie. West Brom went into the second half cruising and seemingly headed for a comfortable win.
Sunderland came out in the second half more determined and more attacking in nature. John O'Shea went off and on came McClean to the left midfield while Adam Johnson moved to the right. Larsson moved to the right of defence and Bardsley moved to the middle. I at first thought that this was a move to prevent O'Shea from being sent off and to make the team more attacking but it was actually because of a muscle injury to O'Shea. Everything worked out though, as Larsson enjoyed venturing forward from right back and posed a much bigger threat than Bardsley had. Sunderland also contributed more players into the box, increasing the pressure with Colback and Gardner popping up during crosses. The pressure only paid off in the 73rd minute, with Sunderland gaining a free kick which Gardner hit and scored via a deflection off Fortune in the West Brom wall.
West Brom restored their two goal lead just 6 minutes later. Gera put in a good pass to Ridgewell, who shielded the ball from Johnson who slid in. The referee gave a penalty even though the contact was minimal and it seemed like Ridgewell was looking for the penalty. Johnson should not have been so rash in the challenge though and Lukaku scored from the spot. It was a good penalty with lots of pace and showed Lukaku's confidence. He took the penalty at such a critical time of the game despite him just coming on 10 minutes ago and there being way more experienced players like Brunt about. In the 86th minute, Jones made a good block on a Johnson who looked like he was ready to wheel away in celebration when the ball struck the side netting. His team was celebrating seconds later though, as Sessegnon fired in the rebound from an acrobatic save after a header from the resulting corner. Sunderland poured men forward in search of that vital equalizer and at one point, even Cuellar was up in the box challenging for a header. It backfired in the end, with Fortune scoring in the 94th minute in a 2v1 situation.
Now on to the positives and negatives for both teams. First up is Sunderland. Sunderland will be glad that they managed to score more than a goal once again, suggesting that their goal scoring problems might finally be resolved. The performance of Sessegnon was also inspiring, and he weaved in and out of West Brom's defence quite a few times. He has returned to the livewire that he was last season and this will be important to Sunderland's season. The performances of their finishing right and left backs Larsson and Rose were also quite good. Larsson provided a good threat out wide while Rose managed to deal with the double threat of Odemwingie and Jones. There are quite a few negatives from this game for Sunderland though. Even when they started pushing players up to pressure West Brom, they managed little penetration and had to rely on two set pieces to get the goals. West Brom was rarely troubled by Sunderland in open play and O'Neill might look towards a tactic that was employed by the team in the opening stages. In the first 30 minutes, the front four of Johnson, Sessegnon, Fletcher and Larsson changed positions constantly and popped up all over the place. It was surprising that this stopped after the goal and it led to the lack of penetration by the attack. The other negative was Mignolet's blunder though I am sure that he will shrug that off as he has shown his quality consistently. One more negative is that they lost two players to injury, as both Cattermole and O'Shea came off during the game. Sunderland will miss their quality in the games coming up, and more importantly will miss their leadership as they are two of the most experienced and vocal members of the team.
West Brom can find lots of bright lights from the game, with Long, Gera and Yacob putting in spectacular shows. I was particularly surprised by Yacob's impressive performances and it seems like in Mulumbu's absence he has really stepped up to the plate. I must also admit that I doubted Clarke's decision to start Gera but it paid off not just with the goal but also with the many chances that he created for his team mates. It must also be said that West Brom did not get complacent even after they got the 2-0 lead and they worked hard to get behind the ball each time they lost it. The negatives were still present though. Odemwingie did not play a very good game and it proves that he is not very consistent. The player I am more concerned with though is Boaz Myhill. He flapped at a few shots, including a Gardner free kick that was right at him in the 45th minute. His passing of the ball was also dismal and the sooner Foster gets back from injury, the better for West Brom.
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