Bowyer looks a safe cracker
BIRMINGHAM are setting themselves up for yet another Great Escape.
Blues have just avoided the drop several times in the past nine years but, three weeks in, new boss Lee Bowyer (below) has given them hope of dodging League One yet again.
Since being appointed Bowyer has beaten Championship promotion-chasers Reading, Watford and Swansea.
Next up is a trip to Brentford on Tuesday and he said: “I am confident we can get out of it.
“We have to believe, don’t we? If I don’t believe it then who does?
“Beating Swansea on Friday was a massive result. It brings others closer to us and gives us a gap between us and Rotherham.
“The players are learning, they are improving individually and as a group.”
THOMAS TUCHEL’S Chelsea honeymoon period is well and truly over after his side were blown to pieces by fabulous West Brom.
The Blues boss, full of romantic tips ahead of the clash, could scarcely believe his eyes as his previously untarnished record in the Stamford Bridge hot seat was left in tatters.
Yes, they played an hour with 10 men after Thiago Silva was sent off but that cannot explain how such a mean Blues defence could let in
against the apparently doomed
Baggies.
Crikey, prior to this thumping they had conceded only two in
Tuchel’s excellent
14-game unbeaten start and had also just kept seven successive clean sheets.
The German (above) – whose side are stuck on 51 points – said: “I don’t know why we couldn’t cope after the red card. Everything that could go wrong did.
“It’s a big wake-up call for us, myself included. It’s very disappointing and I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t feel we were over-confident beforehand.
“It’s not typical for us to concede like this but we made big mistakes.
“We don’t like this result but must accept it.”
Next up for Chelsea is a midweek Champions League last-eight clash with Porto.
As for Sam Allardyce’s strugglers, they face Southampton, with their boss predicting they are still five wins short of a great escape.
He said: “Even five might not be enough but let’s try and get another fantastic victory against Southampton. Chelsea had an off day, not because they were poor but because we were so good. The quality of our finishing fully deserved the 5-2 scoreline.”
If the Blues were rocking coming into this game for the all right reasons, it was the opposite for Albion.
Yet if there is to be a resurrection, what better time to start it than over the Easter weekend?
One factor in the visitors’ favour was that they had troubled several big boys in an otherwise dismal return to the top flight.
In addition to a 3-3 thriller with yesterday’s opponents at The Hawthorns, they had earned draws against Manchester City, Manchester United and Liverpool. Tuchel, on top of comparing Timo Werner’s lack of goalscoring with dating, should have warned his team against complacency.
Right from the off, Chelsea produced a sloppy and disjointed display.
The recalled Silva, put in trouble by Jorginho, received his first yellow for tripping Matheus
Pereira after just three minutes.
But in the 27th minute when Kyle
Bartley gave away a free-kick, tripping the spinning Werner, the Blues broke the deadlock.
Marcos Alonso’s 25-yard set-piece hit the post but while the West Brom defence watched, Christian Pulisic nipped in to tuck away the rebound.
Normal order lasted for all of 60 seconds because Silva took out Okay Yokuslu and was heading for an early bath. The was reckle
That fo with Mo Ziyech sa defender A
But aft denied by collapsed
The eq Johnston Pereira wh Mendy ne
And afte bar, Allar Chelsea f allowing t and calml
Tuchel introduce Mount an the 54th struck the
But Alb with anoth
Their 6 a beautif attack, ro Furlong cr Robinson
Five mi of the ma
for