The odds are that West Bromwich Albion may well be relegated before they kick another ball. A win for Birmingham at home to Newcastle, or a draw for Portsmouth at Wigan will leave Albion seven points adrift with only six points up for grabs, but even now, the chances of Albion getting even three points from their last two games seem remote. In all reality, the last remnants of any hope of survival disappeared with defeat at St James's Park.

And the manner of that defeat was all the more disappointing. Far from it being a performance full of endeavour, commitment but lacking the breaks or the quality to get a result, it was a lacklustre display with far too many players seemingly resigned to their fate, or perhaps waiting for the close season when they hope to get a move to a Premiership club. On their performances in the last two months, many of them are surely living in dreamland.

Bryan Robson must once again take his share of the blame. Once again, in a game that Albion needed to win, he played with a lone striker which gave Albion little opportunity to get forward. He may believe it to be a 4-3-3 formation, but Gera and Kamara were hardly ever close enough to Campbell to make him an effective target man. Campbell does come in for a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, but much of it is a result of him being asked to do something he is not equipped to. Aside from his widely reported motivational impact, KC's strength is winning the ball in the air for flick-ons. He has always done that job well, but there has to be someone nearby to take advantage - in the vast majority of the games this season, that just has not been the case.

A weakened Newcastle attack struggled to get past the Albion defence early on, with Davies (again) and Robinson both working hard. But with the midfield and striker failing to hold onto the ball for any length of time, the pressure was always going to tell. And so, when Albrechtsen came out and missed an interception in the middle of the park, Newcastle broke and the Albion defence were caught short. Davies had two men to handle, Clement was caught flat footed, but he did manage to get a foot to the cross, but succeeded in merely presenting it on a plate for Solano to score with ease.

The second goal was unfortunate, although it was a needless challenge from Clement. Chopra was running away from goal as Clement barged into his back - the contact was a couple of yards outside the box, but somehow the linesman deemed it to be a penalty. Unlucky, perhaps, but a stupid challenge in the first place. Ameobi just beat Kuszczak's right hand from the spot.

At half time, Robson made the sort of bold substitution that we have been calling out for week after week in recent months - unfortunately, at 2-0 down, this was far too late. Kanu, Ellington and Inamoto replaced Campbell, Kamara and Watson as Albion switched to 4-4-2. For the early part of the second half, Albion looked much better and exerted some pressure on the Newcastle goal without creating any real chances. As as been he case so many times of late, the cutting edge simply wasn't there.

Albion's only shot on target came from a long range effort from Quashie that was easily saved by Given, and their only real clear-cut chance came when Kanu put Ellington through with ten minutes left, but the former Wigan man fired well wide of the post.

As the half went on, the little effort and belief that the Albion players may have had withered away and, in injury time, Clement was caught on the wrong side of Ameobi and he ran through unchallenged to make it 3-0.

It is such a contrast to the superb efforts towards the end of last season - Albion are going down with little more than a whimper. There may have been some bad luck in recent weeks when penalty decisions haven't gone our way, but in the last two games, there seems to have been a complete lack of commitment and belief that they can get out of trouble. It is now next to impossible, and should Albion indeed be relegated ahead of next Monday's game, the reaction of the fans may not be pretty.



Marks

Tomasz Kuszczak - 6 - Did little wrong.
Martin Albrechtsen - 6 - Mistake for the first goal; showed more effort than most.
Neil Clement - 3 - Switched off too many times, stupid challenge for the second goal.
Curtis Davies - 6 - MOM. Marginally the best of a bad bunch.
Paul Robinson - 5 - Struggled with Solano, but plenty of effort.
Steve Watson - 5 - Contributed little.
Jonathan Greening - 5 - One or two good moments, one or two dreadful ones.
Nigel Quashie - 6 - Worked hard.
Kevin Campbell - 5- Achieved little with no support.
Zoltan Gera - 5 - Not the player he was; needs a pre-season, hopefully with us.
Diomansy Kamara - 5 - Very little impact.



Junichi Inamoto - 5 - Did OK.
Nathan Ellington - 4 - Lacking in effort, poor miss late on.
Nwankwo Kanu - 6 - A little quality, but not enough.


Bryan Robson - 5 - Didn't give the team a chance to get the goals they needed first half. Good to see a bold substitution but should have started with a more attacking line-up.



Jon Want, 23rd April 2006.