West Brom a class above

West Brom demonstrated to the Cobblers how far in front of them they are in class, thought, pace and skill on Wednesday night.
Both teams fielded strong sides, Albion included Jonathon Greening, Kevin Phillips, Craig Beattie and new boy Filipe Teixeira. The Cobblers started with Kirk, Larkin and Henderson, and the line-up was close to the one that will start against Swindon, only Doig was missing.

From the kick-off Albion demonstrated how to make the ball do the work! Their passing and movement were effortless and for most of the evening the Cobblers were chasing shadows.
Albion needed the help of the Cobblers for 2 of their goals, Greening`s shot rebounding off the post and then Bunn`s back into the goal for the first goal and Mark Hughes heading a stunner past Bunn into his own next for the third. In between Teixeira scored from a well worked goal with a 20 yard curler past Bunn.

The second half saw the impressive Kevin Phillips dominating the forward line with Beattie. But is was Brad Johnson who came closest to scoring at the beginning of the second period, his fierocious 22 yard shot was spectacularly saved on- handed by Baggies` keeper Kiely.

Albions fourth was scored by new boy Teixeira, capitalising on Bunn, Crowe and Hughes inability to clear the ball and the fifth was scored by Phillips.

Ian Henderson scored an excellent consolation, linking well with Jackman to shoot into the bottom left-hand of Kiely`s goal from just inside the area.

There were very few positives for Cobbler`s fans to take from this match. The team lacked invention and pace. The midfield were rarely in the game and lost the ball too easily, The forwards lacked service but Henderson looked as if he could cause problems to League one defenders. Larkin showed one or two reasonable touches but was hardly involved. Bunn made some excellent saves and Dolman looked compotent but not very mobile. Hughes wasn`t his usual dominnering self as captain. We look several players short of a reasonable side and the bench was lacking in experience.

Another positive is that we will not meet many teams in League one as good as West Brom .

On this showing we didn`t look or play like a team. I know its hard to make predictions based on preseason friendlies but we seem to lack the creativity we will need to consolidate in League One and build for the Championship. Our new signings looked compotent but not very inspiring. My prediction for next season ,,,,much the same as last -bottom half of the league.