[Ska'dForLife-WBA]

Albion commence (though hopefully won't conclude) this season's League Cup campaign tonight at Highbury, where we've either travelled through time to face 1990s Arsenal or are up against Fleetwood. First competitive encounter between the sides: Fleetwood are 9th in League Two having opened the season with a win over Grimsby, and ostensibly none the worse for losing Peter Green and Christine McVie. Kick-off at 19:45.

[Baggie_One]

Playing some beautiful stuff

Winning 1-0

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Now losing 2-1

[Salopbaggie]

Playing some beautiful stuff

Well they did for the first 10 minutes, from then on, it was straight from last seasons first team play book, why go forward when you can go side to side or backwards? Then when we do get anywhere near the Fleetwood penalty area it is either pass back to our own half or keep trying to walk it into the net until we lose possession.

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This really is hard to watch 5 minutes to go a goal down to a PL2 team and we make two passes back to our keeper from the halfway line, in less than an minute.

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Well that's it for another year, apart from the p1*s taking from our neighbours and we deserve it. I would love to see the stats and how far the ball travelled in a sideways or backward direction compared to forward. Lets be honest Fleetwood were very poor, we had 74.5% possession and while we managed 14 shots, only 3 were on target compared to Fleetwood 3 shots, 3 on target and we know we 2 of them ended up. I seem to remember two of our 14 went out for a throw in. I am finding it pretty difficult to find anything to be positive about this showing, 7 debuts, big deal, great for the players, but does not really mean anything to the fans. It almost seemed like we deliberately did not try to win this game, I don't mean we tried to lose it, just that we did not try to win it, things like 2-1 down 67 minutes in so you bring on 2 defenders??

[Slick_Footwork]

Missed the weekend's game as I was away. Saw the goals but that was it.

With that in mind, I was keen to watch today's game and see some of the new boys and youngsters play. If nothing more, it confirmed we need further reinforcements if that's our first team back up.

Obviously you can't judge a player on one game, but if I was a betting man, I'd say that none of those youngsters are going to make it at Championship level. I just didn't see anything in any of them. A couple of the lads we brought on at the end looked like absolute donkeys. You sometimes wonder how these players ever make it pro...

As for the senior players, I thought Frabotta showed positive signs. Looked athletic, wanted to get forward and whip balls in.

That was about it really.

Diakite showed some nice touches, but was poor for the goals. Cole did well for the goal, but was absent otherwise. Dobbin showed a couple of nice touches but was largely absent. If you're not going to impose yourself on teams at that level, I can't see how you'll do it in the Championship. If we think he's going to replace Johnston, I fear we're going to be bitterly disappointed.

Not going to blame Corberan for his selection because we can't afford to take any risks with our paper thin squad. We're not going to win the league cup anyway, so what's the point? His subs were just to preserve those who will be involved in the seniors.

[baggietrousers]

Have agree with Slick about some of those youngsters, there were certainly a couple who came on that looked absolutely awful. I accept you can’t judge how good someone is in just a few minutes, but surely at that level you know how to head and kick a ball properly.
As for the rest, yep not a lot of positives and given the performances I can definitely see why none of the first team were risked given there’s no back up.

[Stairs]

It looked very poor - most concerning was that we have a few new recruits in there and they should have stood out (for the right reasons).

Always annoys me that a professional footballer can leave one club and join another (even with a summers break) and not be match fit when he arrives. Surely it is their duty to maintain fitness and be ready to play!

[Baggievicar]

I thought I'd have a look at the team which was put out against the gooners in the Carabao 3 years ago (went down 6-0) to see if any had progressed.
Three I suppose have kicked on with us or elsewhere (Palmer, Fellows and TGH). Taylor, Faal and Cann much the same position as they were then. Most of the others have vanished.
A Palmer
C Kipre
C Taylor
S Shotton
E Ingram
Q De Castro
R Snodgrass ©
A Reach
T Fellows
K Zohore
T Gardner-Hickman

Substitutes
J Malcolm
Z Delaney
M Faal
R Richards
T Cann
T King