West Bromwich Albion are in a footballing Purgatory . . . between the top and second tier

Dec 16 2008 By Chris Lepkowski

excitement at the start of the season, but is now being out-jumped at the far post by Andy Reid.

Carson has been a relative success story, while Borja cost £5million but is fast becoming Albion’s very own Ray Wilkins, but not in a good way.

One media colleague said he would ‘never be a Premier League player in a million years’.

That’s harsh – the potential is so clearly there. He often seems one step ahead of his team-mates in terms of vision.

However, he doesn’t influence games as he should. Cech? Dorrans? Kim? Who knows. Donk? Indeed.

Meite and Olsson are competent but need help in front of them. The defensive midfielder was wanted but never came.

Why Albion’s hierarchy waited until the last minute to pursue Kevin Thomson has yet to be explained.

Kevin Phillips left. Replacements? Fraizer Campbell would have exited the M6 at Junction Seven had Spurs not sought a striker in return for Berbatov leaving.

Tactics? We can talk about formations all night – Mowbray spends all day, every day working on this – but chances are being created only to be missed.

Worse, mistakes creep into defence with alarming regularity. Two years on, Mowbray has