Who are you? We’re West Brom (1)

You know how it is with London buses. It’s the same with Baggies. When Salut! Sunderland appealed for a West Brom fan ahead of this Saturday’s monumentally important game, it waited for ages before – courtesy of the admirable WBAzone.com fans’ site – two came along. Josh Roberts*, pictured, and Tim Joyner answered the call simultaneously. Both provided stimulating answers to our questions; Josh kicks it off and guess who he thinks is going down…

Q1: Were you surprised to go up, and are you surprised to be where you are now?

I was not surprised to see us go up, I was expecting at least playoff spot last season. Mowbray did an decent job in getting out the players who did not want to be here and bring in players who were of good enough quality to get us up and battle and gelling them into a team so quick.
As for this season, I had hopes like most Albion fans we could kick on and become established. Whether surprised is the word I don’t know. Using hind sight it’s not surprising at all if I’m honest all the signs of relegation are there for all to see, from the school boy errors we see every week in defence, to the aimlessness of our football at times in essence when you defend like we have at times, and when we fail to create enough chances it’s no surprise we are bottom of the league. The only surprising factor in my mind is how stubborn our manager has been in playing to his principles when a sacrifice to style at certain times would have been the best option. I am surprised to see us this far adrift as I honestly believe we do have a decent enough playing squad to be competitive at this level.

Q2: What did you reckon to Sunderland’s prospects at the start of the season and are you shocked to see us fighting for our lives?

Sunderland are like most teams in the prem one bad season and you are in trouble. Only the big four, Spur, Everton and Villa are exempt from this. In August you were one of the teams that as an Albion fan I said to myself we are as good as these, and given a good run we could finish above you