Morecambe 1 - West Bromwich Albion 1

Morecambe win 4-3 on penalties

dave baxendale:

Albion got off to the best possible start taking the lead in the second minute through Elford-Alliyu who shot home after the keeper spilled his first shot. He then had a "goal" disallowed for offside after 25 minutes. Hancock limped off on the stroke of half time after a two footed challenge by Twiss who was booked. This should have been a red card. H-T 0-1, Albion had most of the play in the first half but only the one goal to show.

Morecambe took control from the restart and finally scored on 62 minutes through a Grand header into the top corner. Albion came more into it after the goal. Labadie had a shot tipped over, Elford-Alliyu had a shot saved and Compton hit the post. In the 90th minute Grand received a red card for a two footed challenge on Labadie who was subbed. There was no consistency in the refs decisions on the two awful challenges at the end of each half. Both were red card offences.

Full Time 1-1 and so to penalties. Morecambe missed their first after Compton had put Albion 1-0 up. They then scored the next four as Albion missed the second and third. Both saved from Hodgkiss and Saieed. Elford-Alliyu and Nicholls scored Albions other pens as it ended 4-3 to the hosts.

Baggie Boy:

I'm afraid that in this case it wasn't a case of not being able to take penalties - these particular two were excellent placed - but their goalkeeper, after letting the first penalty kick in, made two 'Gordon Banks' style saves to keep these out.

There seems to be something these days about anything with the word 'final' in them and 'WBA'!

We started this game in brilliant form scoring within two minutes and continued with some excellent, accurate passing, controlled football - very much in the mould that Tony Mowbray likes to play. And we completely dominated the first half, and were unlucky not to be two or three up at half time - Dave Worrall managed to do a 'Kanu against Middlesboro' from only a couple of feet out. A Villa fan who came with us commented that we had the game sewn up and were playing brilliant football.

Just before half time their no 10 put in a vicious tackle on Hancox, earning him - luckily - a yellow. Hancox never made it back on to the field. Second half I think we came out thinking that the game was won - and paid the price because for twenty minutes Morecambe cut us open at every turn - culminating with their goal. Incidentally Danek was in goal but there was nothing he could do about saving this header into the top left hand corner of the net!

That seemed to wake us up and suddenly we were creating chance after chance - again we could have scored easily two and probably more but for their goalkeeper. Just on full time their Grand put in a vicious foul on Labadie and the poor lad was treated on the pitch for near on five minutes before being assisted off the pitch. Even though the fourth official said there would be four extra minutes to be played, the ref blew the whistle as soon as the game restarted.

So back to penalties and whilst their first effort went harmlessly over the bar, their goalkeeper made two magnificent saves, whilst Danek was SO unlucky not to get to their final one which went in off his left hand post with his fingers only fractions of an inch away. As I said earlier the words 'final' and 'Albion' do not seem to go together these days.

For those interested in Danek he looks very impressive touching the crossbar just standing on his line. He came out to meet one cross to avert a threat and came and punched solidly on another occasion, but to be honest he wasn't troubled enough to be able to give an opinion one way or the other. I'm afraid, like me, you will just have to wait and see!