Roberto di Matteo’s West Brom shed yoyo tag by playing with style
“Doing a Hull” is now the official term for a promoted team overachieving before the slow, steady, inevitable decline into the Championship.
It is a tag that ensures that it’s always a little too premature to overly praise one of the division’s new boys when they start a campaign well. But if you were to list the Premier League managers in the order that they are least likely to perform a Phil Brown-esque open air teamtalk/breakdown after a first half hadn’t exactly gone to plan, then West Bromwich Albion’s Roberto di Matteo would most likely be near the top of your piece of paper.
Cool, composed, casual, West Brom have started their fifth season in the top flight in the image of their manager.
Sixth in the table, the Baggies are unbeaten in five matches at The Hawthorns this season, with their only defeats on the road coming at Stamford Bridge and Anfield.
That opening day 6-0 loss to Chelsea hinted at yet another season of struggle for the west Midlanders, but Di Matteo appears to have drawn strength from that humbling at the hands of his former club, learning a lot about the whys and wherefores of away games in the division in his first season as a manager in it – the apex of that newfound knowledge surely coming with back-to-back 3-2 win at Arsenal and a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford.
Whether or not those results – or more pertinently those achievements – will ever be bettered this season are unlikely, but the Baggies – who also won 4-1 at Leicester this week to progress into the quarter finals of the Carling Cup – certainly look here to stay this time around.
Despite the weekend’s brief flirtation with the Champions League places, it’s surely too early to start proclaiming that Di Matteo is on the verge of leading West Brom to their heights of the late 1970s and early 80s, when Ron Atkinson led the Baggies to a third-placed league finish and the Uefa Cup quarter-finals, but anything’s possible though right?
“There is no secret,” Di Matteo said this week when asked about the reasons behind his successes this season. “It is just down to hard work and the players enjoying what they do.” That much is evident on the pitch too.
In the home clash with Fulham at the weekend – a match which produced a 2-1 victory for the hosts in a result that flattered the visitors – West Brom showcased all of their attacking style that has served them so well this season.
True, there was an element of doubt over both Youssuf Mulumbu and Marc-Antoine Fortuné’s goals – as Fulham boss Mark Hughes appealed for offside – but both were examples of the fast, stylish football that Di Matteo’s side can play, and which marks them out from previous West Brom vintages that graced the Premier League, however briefly. They look more of a functioning team unit this time around.
In goal a maturing Scott Carson captains the side, playing behind a defence that includes both proven Premier League experience in Nicky Shorey and promising performers new to the division such as Gonzalo Jara and Gabriel Tamaş.
While his defence has been strong, it is midfield where Di Matteo’s side has been most impressive – perhaps not surprising given his own career as a distinguished performer in the centre of the park.
The hard working Mulumbu, Paul Scharner and Somen Tchoyi provide the platform for the likes of James Morrison, Jerome Thomas and the hugely impressive Chris Brunt to perform, and while they may still be lacking the genuine out-and-out goalscorer so desperately needed during their previous brief flirtations with the Premier League, Nigerian international Peter Odemwingie – September’s Premier League Player of the Month – has started well, and their overall strength in other areas of the team means that that need isn’t as great any more anyway.
They have all bought into the Di Matteo revolution, but he would be the first to say that he and his team are only a quarter of the way into the season, and so you won’t find him making any bold predictions.
You won’t find him delivering a public dressing down on the pitch at The Hawthorns though either, and that can only bode well.
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