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Antti's 6 Knee Jerks - WBA 17:21 - Dec 21 with 830 viewsAntti_Heinola

Always more fun to see the old knee jerking after a victory, even if said knees have been sliced to shreds by the seat in front of me.

1. Chaz Austin. Hey, we all make mistakes. Karl Henry has done a far better job this season than I ever thought possible. But Wally Downes Jr's essay about why we should drop Charlie Austin a couple of months back will go down as a particular classic. I'm calling it now - Charlie is the best striker we've had since Sir Les, with all due deference to Furs and Kev and John Spencer. If he had pace he would simply be worth £30m now, because he has absolutely everything else: power, heading ability, a phenomenal attitude, great work ethic, a will to win and he can score all kinds of goals - inside the box, outside the box, left foot, right foot, volleys, tap ins, round the keeper, penalties and headers. As I say - pace apart, quite simply the complete striker (not the perfect striker obviously, but complete). The way he has recovered from that opening day penalty miss is superb - he's got better and better all season and yesterday, even in the first half when the rest of the team bar Green was frankly diabolical, he reached an apex. Absolutely brilliant, marauding, devastating, all-round performance. The hat trick looked likely from the moment he netted his first. But his hard work for the team was just as important - his tackle on his own goalline as pointed out by MOTD summed him up. Brilliant, brilliant. He may not score the 20 goals he's on course for, but even 11 for the whole season would have been a very good return - the fact he has 11 before Christmas is astonishing. The only two worries are: where would we be without him? And how long before Spurs/Newcastle/Liverpool come calling? Redknapp should be worshipping at this guy's feet because he is the best signing Redknapp has made in his life since the dual signings of Hartson and Kitson that kept West Ham up all those years ago. Without Austin - had we signed Hooper - I'm absolutely positive Harry would not be at QPR now.

2.Joey Barton. Bit bored of writing about Joey, but there you go. Trevor Sinclair, a good football analyst, tweeted that he saw the game on Sky and was pleased to see Joey running the midfield. I can only assume Tricky only saw the second half, because first half it was as bad as it gets from our captain. Time after time he gave the ball away, usually, but not always, because he was choosing the ridiculous ball when the simple one was what was required. Slow to get back, often allowing his man to run past him, sometimes stuck out at right midfield, well out of position and then unable to summon the energy to get back quickly - this was Joey in a performance every bit as bad as the last time we came from 2 down to win in the Premier League. Meanwhile, Henry was neat and tidy with the ball and was our most effective midfielder first half because he does the very simple things well. However, second half was a different story. Suddenly Joey's passes found their mark. He won more of the ball. He delivered two great corners. He got forward and got back and got in his customary excellent blocks. While Henry had a bit of a shocker after the break. The question for Joey is - what the fk happened first half?

3. The first 20 minutes. Dreadful. Absolutely appalling - I haven't seen all our away games, but we can't have played worse than that all season. Sloppy, lazy, half asleep, half-hearted. It was sh!t, plain and simple. Only Austin and poor Green can be absolved from blame. Despite what they said on MOTD, Goals on Sunday proved it was a penalty, but we were lucky to get back in the game when we did, because Albion were threatening to give us a bashing normally reserved for games away from LR. Would have been unforgivable... except...

4. Team Spirit. ...except the team, led by example up front by Austin, refused to give up. We were probably not on top for 80 minutes of the 90, yet we found a way to win, and huge credit must go to players and staff for that. Albion should have won comfortably from that position, but their timid second half performance thanks to a nervy manager, their poor finishing, and some bad fortune, meant we took the points. If the performance didn't deserve it, perhaps our resolve did.

5. Fer. The real enigma in the side. Talented, strong, dangerous. He has everything you'd want from a central midfielder. But he's stuck on the wing, doesn't show the sort of determination in the tackle you'd want, and is not delivering what he should be on a regular basis. Loses far too many 50-50s, even some 70-30s. One thing is for sure, as I say every week - he isn't a left midfielder, and never will be.

6. Clint Hill. What more can you say about this man? A mountain. Barely played this season, comes on cold and is faced with a relentless, furious, lightning Sessegnon... who promptly seemed to disappear from the game. Partly because for some unearthly reason Irvine shifted him in field for a bit, but also partly because of Clint's great football knowhow. He was also, incredibly, one of our best passers yesterday - played some lovely balls down the line and also sent in one super cross. At the end of the season, the club should be waving goodbye to several players as we try and move forward with hopefully a younger side - Barton, Henry, SWP, Rio, Dunne, Zamora - but Clint is a man we should be keeping at the club as a coach and a mentor. Brilliant - second only to Austin yesterday.

Bare bones.

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Antti's 6 Knee Jerks - WBA on 18:11 - Dec 21 with 737 viewsTacticalR

6. Clint Hill.

I also noticed that his long balls forward over the top on the left-hand side were well suited to Zamora and Austin (they never worked with players like Djibril Cissé who wanted everything on the ground).

Air hostess clique

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Antti's 6 Knee Jerks - WBA on 18:49 - Dec 21 with 676 viewsTheBlob

3. Reminds me of that old motor you spend a fortune on keeping on the road,the one that you leave running for 20 minutes before it warms up and in hope it'll take you where you want to go.

Poll: So how was the season for you?

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Antti's 6 Knee Jerks - WBA on 20:27 - Dec 21 with 577 viewsdaveB

I'll be the first to admit I didn't thinK Austin would step up but he has been absolutely brilliant. He had a swagger about him yesterday and as you say Antti once that first went in you knew he'd score more. It's a privilege to watch him at the moment much like Adel in that promotion year and Ferdinand at his best he is head and shoulders above everyone else on the pitch, if he plays well we can win simple as that.

For me he's the best finisher I've seen since Gary Bannister and probably the best all round forward we've had since Ferdinand, for me to say he's better than Gallen take some doing as well.
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