Positives From Tonight

[Colburn_Claret]

Just a comment on that. There was a lot of criticism on here back in January when the likes of Benson, Glennon etc. went out on loan to League Two clubs suggesting that it was almost pointless if they weren't going to go to at least a Championship club. Last week, after the Millwall game, Benson said how much he'd benefited from it, how much he'd learned playing regular first team football and how much it had improved him. I'm not suggesting that he should be going back out to a League Two club but we need to balance it now. With us out of the cups, players coming back to fitness and Stephens having signed, he's not likely to get too much first team football. A loan at a Championship club would I think be ideal if that's the case.

Hasn't he done well though when he's been on the pitch in these cup games? Another real positive.

Fair point Tony, and I don't doubt last seasons loan brought him on, but is another loan to the same level going to do the same. I hope that the hard times in the EFL will find an opening for him somewhere.
With the ages of Cork and Westy its a hope that Brownhill and Benson will be the future.

[mybloodisclaret]

The real positive was getting minutes into Tarkowski and Barnes while the one negative was getting knocked out albeit by a bloody good team.

Hopefully those two will be in the squad for Saturday and then, hopefully, there will be more back and one or two new players for West Brom after the break.

Hard watch tonight, but always is against City.

You got a couple of articles written up CT?

[Goodclaret]

I won't have to listen to that patronising prat commentating again!

I'm glad someone else agreed what an awful commentator he was. I'm still deciding whether he was just wearing a Man City top or went "full kit"? He was absolutely clueless about the gap that clearly exists between us and a team that has spent about 7 trillion pounds in the last few years!!

[ashtonlongsider]

Big positive was Tarks back in the fold and long may it continue. Benson looks good and I personally hope we blood him in our first team squad this season.

Negative-Disappointing to get knocked out of the competition. We always seem to have an inferiority complex when we play this lot. I'm also sorry I don't think there as good as some on here are making out. Leicester showed them up for what they are last Sunday. Still not replaced Kompany and rely heavily on Fernandinho. It just highlights further that we are well short of a quality creative midfielder.

[Bigvince]

Dwight isn't JBG.
He is wasted if he isn't playing infront of Taylor.
We need him going past players, and pinging those crosses in. Swapping him for Pieters just weakened us in 2 positions, instead of one. I also think Eric would have helped out a lot more defensively on that side.
Its a lesson we haven't learnt after all the Dyche years, if you lose a player, you replace HIM, you don't shuffle the whole pack to accommodate him. If that means bringing in the LW from the U23s, so be it.

I wasn’t inferring that Dwight is suited to playing on the right, I was responding to the original post that declared that left footed players are ineffective playing on the right

[ten bellies]

I thought we moved the ball precisely and quickly in patches, although the final pass was lacking, often trying to make a pass that isn't possible. We also carried on playing until the end, trying to find an opening. Our approach play is getting much better, we just need to improve that final pass. And it wasn't 5-0.