West Brom 2-2 Forest
Welcome to the high lands. Up here, the wind is strong, the ways are steep and the footing insecure. Football, as we understand it, does not exist, for the things we took for granted - fair play, unbiased officials, professional pride, just desserts - have been blown to buggery in the storm.
The pressure and the altitude do funny things to teams up here. West Brom, for example, have become marginally psychotic. A toxic mixture of self-doubt, unjustified arrogance and testosterone has driven them crazy. You can see it in their manager's appearance and behaviour, both of which appear to be out of control. Some people put his "homeless drunk" demeanour down to depression, others say it's just mange.
West Brom's unhinged approach to the game showed early. Forest's Ribeiro surged down the left and produced an almost perfect cross to Lewis Grabban unmarked in the middle. Now, either the cross wasn't perfect enough (it may have dipped at the last second) or Grabban's confidence was low, but for whatever reason the Forest striker directed his header wide. Having been scared by this near thing, it then became Livermore's job to teach Ribeiro a lesson, by stamping hard down on the Forest man's knee as he tried to clear. Not content with trying to end Ribeiro's career, Livermore stood over his victim and roared at him, presumably accusing him of diving, in a cowardly attempt to divert attention from his own guilt. The referee took no action, obviously feeling that Livermore was more in need of psychiatric help than a red card. The referee was called Mister Stroud.
Mister Stroud came with the territory. Remember where we are, up here in the high lands where civilised rules don't apply any more. Mister Stroud, having begun badly, went on to give a display of such negligence you genuinely couldn't tell whether he was biased or just blindly incompetent. As well as ignoring Livermore's brutality, he was clearly intimidated by Bilic's persistent lunacy, he repeatedly took pity on the squealing boy Pereira, he failed to acknowledge a Bartley penalty hand ball, he ignored a foul on Ameobi during the build up to Brom's second goal, ignored a trip on Lolley just outside their penalty area, ignored Phillips extravagant play-acting, ignored fouls on Diakhaby and Figueiredo, and generally behaved with the kind of embarrassing ineptitude which might make the most level headed onlooker suspicious, but which will no doubt be ignored by the authorities.
As for the bones of the match, even they were fleshed with distaste. Robinson's celebration of West Brom's first goal was a cameo of strutting arrogance by a man with a dead animal glued to his head. Forest's equaliser came when Grabban was denied a much needed goal by the intervention of Bartley - he of hand-ball fame. West Brom's second, scored while Ameobi was still down, was a surgical Livermore strike which went through two Forest players' legs and in off Figueiredo. And finally, in the ninety first minute, came Matty Cash's goal...
Up here, in the high lands, the going is tough. At times, it is as if you are faced by a whole world of ranting bullies and brain dead officials, and the easiest thing would be to sink to your knees and accept defeat. But at no time in this match did Forest flinch. From the very start, Forest believed they were at least West Brom's equal, and they were scared into playing by some very dirty rules. On 90 minutes, it looked as if the home side would scrape a tarnished victory, but then came Cash's jink to find space and that searing thump into the far corner of the net, and the world made some kind of sense again.
Up here, Forest will do well, because they have enough grit to cope with the conditions, and enough dignity to rise above them. The same, sadly, cannot be confidently said of West Brom.
Up here...
posted on 17/2/20
Livermore should have been booked for the challenge and might have been sent off. Forest could have had a penalty. However I'm sick of teams trying to kick Pereira off the park and usually getting away with it. "Psychotic" Albion are on top of that division because we have consistently played well. Having said all that I hope Forest make it and we can get 2 more Midland clubs in the top division.
posted on 17/2/20
comment by Redfor50yrs (U2973)
posted 8 minutes ago
comment by sexSLAVEn (U22196)
posted 49 minutes ago
Match stats...
Possession:
Albion 61% Forest 39%
Shots:
Albion 18 Forest 8
Shots on target:
Albion 9 Forest 1
Cash should have received a second yellow well before he scored you equaliser and we had a perfectly good goal ruled out.
We played you off the park!
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Good stats, my friend but you forgot the most important one:
Goals Scored.
Want to remind us what that was? No? I thought not.
Goodbye
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Well, goals scored was 3-2. Alas the ref got that wrong too.
posted on 17/2/20
comment by Alouion (U2095)
posted 12 seconds ago
Livermore should have been booked for the challenge and might have been sent off. Forest could have had a penalty. However I'm sick of teams trying to kick Pereira off the park and usually getting away with it. "Psychotic" Albion are on top of that division because we have consistently played well. Having said all that I hope Forest make it and we can get 2 more Midland clubs in the top division.
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Now I know partisanship is rife in football and there is no doubt that Pereira is a good player with a deft touch, but...
He falls shamelessly and feigns injury almost to a comical level, exhibit 1...
https://twitter.com/Leonard15Shaun/status/1228667482367459329?s=20
posted on 17/2/20
comment by Strett (U1462)
posted 9 minutes ago
comment by Alouion (U2095)
posted 12 seconds ago
Livermore should have been booked for the challenge and might have been sent off. Forest could have had a penalty. However I'm sick of teams trying to kick Pereira off the park and usually getting away with it. "Psychotic" Albion are on top of that division because we have consistently played well. Having said all that I hope Forest make it and we can get 2 more Midland clubs in the top division.
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Now I know partisanship is rife in football and there is no doubt that Pereira is a good player with a deft touch, but...
He falls shamelessly and feigns injury almost to a comical level, exhibit 1...
https://twitter.com/Leonard15Shaun/status/1228667482367459329?s=20
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How about exhibit 2 where he chipped the ball over your full back when they were standing about a yard apart?!
GOAT!!!
posted on 17/2/20
comment by Redfor50yrs (U2973)
posted 22 minutes ago
comment by sexSLAVEn (U22196)
posted 49 minutes ago
Match stats...
Possession:
Albion 61% Forest 39%
Shots:
Albion 18 Forest 8
Shots on target:
Albion 9 Forest 1
Cash should have received a second yellow well before he scored you equaliser and we had a perfectly good goal ruled out.
We played you off the park!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Good stats, my friend but you forgot the most important one:
Goals Scored.
Want to remind us what that was? No? I thought not.
Goodbye
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Doesn't stop your lot banging on about the stats regarding how many red cards we were given or penalties the he gave you!
Enjoy the play offs!
posted on 17/2/20
Pereira does play to the gallery from time to time. He's Brazilian after all. It exasperates many of us that he does this but he is a fabulous player and far more sinned against than sinning.
posted on 17/2/20
When discussing your ‘third’ goal check the rule for offside, you’ll find your guy qualifies quite nicely, entangled with a loan defender on the line, behind the second defender, our goalkeeper, means you are offside, quite simple really.
posted on 17/2/20
West Bum were lucky that Stroud was refine the game, otherwise you would have been down to 9 and lost 1-3!
posted on 17/2/20
Or even ‘refereeing’
posted on 18/2/20
comment by Alouion (U2095)
posted 1 day ago
comment by Redfor50yrs (U2973)
posted 8 minutes ago
comment by sexSLAVEn (U22196)
posted 49 minutes ago
Match stats...
Possession:
Albion 61% Forest 39%
Shots:
Albion 18 Forest 8
Shots on target:
Albion 9 Forest 1
Cash should have received a second yellow well before he scored you equaliser and we had a perfectly good goal ruled out.
We played you off the park!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Good stats, my friend but you forgot the most important one:
Goals Scored.
Want to remind us what that was? No? I thought not.
Goodbye
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, goals scored was 3-2. Alas the ref got that wrong too.
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Oh yes, you're right. I forgot; the rules don't apply to West Brom do they.