I've been locked indoors being surprisingly ill. Either there's actually something to this 'covid' thing or I'm just a melty melt. Either way, my life has mostly been dealing with people from track and trace who talk really slowly and ask the same questions as last time they rang and woke you up or trying ineffectually to work from home.
Like last year's lockdown, but in a minature personal form, the one bit of shape to my 10 day house arrest has been the football.
Swansea, I probably wasn't going to anyway so that wasn't so bad. It was a dire game as well which softened the blow. We did well in stopping them playing but not very well in playing ourselves until the end when we played quite well for a bit. Keshi is becoming a legend for his ridiculous ability to make goals happen. He found a catflap sized gap in a crowded box, then put the ball into it, on the volley, with curve and spin. He's just filthy, he's a veritable pool shark of a footballer.
Other things that I took from the game include such observations that their scorer looked a bit like a baddie in a film about space soldiers in the future and that I still don't get the fuss about Russell Martin. Swansea (and MK Dons) prior to that apparently play good football but everytime I've seen them, they've been about as exciting as I find the idea of listening to Adele bang on about getting divorced.
It wasn't the best game of football ever in terms of lifting me out of the fug I was in. Luckily, the West Brom match was ace and for a minute there, I forgot I was living in a dystopia.
WBA are on my list of teams that aren't Blackpool that I don't mind. They seem to be absolutely at the point where small and big intersect. They've got loads of noisy fans and a decent history but if you popped back or forward in time and discovered they were in any of the top 3 leagues, you wouldn't be surprised. There's a certain swagger to them but also a certain homeliness. Also throstles. Everyone loves a throstle.
There were no goals but there was frankly ridiculous double save to deny the goal machine and then Keshi. There was also the frankly heartbreaking moment when Gary Goals had a diving header blocked late on. I might have died on the spot had he scored that, but I'd have died happy and I could have had 'killed by the ridiculous beauty of a Gary Madine diving header" on my tombstone. Which would be grand. We did ok, but the excellent Keshi aside, our real heroes were defensive.
We had chances but we conceded a lot of possession and played with our back against the wall for quite long periods. West Brom played fast, almost a bit too fast and I can't help thinking that as intense as their play was, it was very one paced. Their manager had the air of a villain from a Disney channel original drama, stalking the touchline and scowling in a really long quilted jacket. He gave off abusive ringmaster vibes, as if he might be about to whip someone if they stopped running very hard for even a split second.
Jimmy Husband's doubters were once plentiful. Last night, he was playing in his third best position and was immense. Again. Jimmy is class. End of. He's an even better left back than he is a centre half as well.
One privilege of watching on TV was the close up of him having his head bandaged and him removing it from the ear the physio kept insisting on wrapping it over. Loop over ear. Jimmy removes. Next layer over ear. Jimmy removes. Repeat. I might make an animated infinitely repeating gif of it. I feel it could be hypnotic. I don't know why I'd need to hypnotize myself or anyone else but it would be better than facing reality.
Jordan Gabriel as usual gave everything despite having a bit of a torrid time due to Josh Bowler being about as effective in the tackle as damp tissue paper. I like Josh though. It's easy to moan that he's not Neil Bishop and wor Neil had plenty of games where he was shite at dribbling past players like they weren't there so it equals itself out. It is a bit frustrating when he replaces doing useful stuff with waving and throwing his hands in the air, but he's mad good when he's good and it is what it is.
Marv made several frankly wonderful interceptions with one piece of tracking back in particular where he found himself wrong side and got back to make the block anyway acting a perfect demonstration of how defending is as skillful as attacking really.
Reece James had an excellent game at left back. He looks to me a bit like he's actually an old fella with a zimmer frame, all bony hunched shoulders and bowed knees, like one of those mad ancient blokes who don't seem to age and are still playing for a Sunday league team in their 70s. Despite appearances, it's becoming increasingly clear he's actually a nippy and combative young man with a good touch and a nice delivery. Which is handy.
We haven't won for a few games now but we've fought for everything in those games. We've had a run of decent opponents and stood up to them. We will continue to do so. We spoiled at Swansea and gave WBA a decent game. We're still way ahead of where I thought we might be and we still haven't really been shown up particularly by anyone.
The world is still our oyster and anything is still possible.
Onward.
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