Although we were expecting a tough challenge with the visit of West Brom, I don't think any Town fan who watched the game was anything other than disappointed with the way we folded today and allowed them to make us look weak.

It's laughable that in the prematch garb on the local radio that they were talking about Town "going for goals today" - with West Brom's weakness being their defence and that we'd be out to exploit that fully. It was very obviously our Achilles' heel, with a perfect display of wayward defending on show at times. Jason De Vos looked tired, Richard Naylor at times looked lost. Playing Alex Bruce at right back didn't work the first time, and I'd hope we wont be seeing him played out of position there again. Surely Sito and Fabian Wilnis should be given a shout in that position?

At the other end of the pitch, while we were lively for periods, we never really a great threat to the "weak" defence of the visitors. Billy Clarke did well to hassle them a bit and the goal was probably derserved at that point in the game. But the real inevitability of it all came home in the first ten minutes of the second half, with the two goals that killed the game for us. Four one down with half an hour to go, there was only one thing left to do, allow bloody Kevin Phillips to complete his hat-trick. I can't believe that two of his goals were headers - how tall is he?!

Our midfield on the day were nothing more than ordinary. Uninteresting and uninventive. Simon Walton was hardly noticable apart from a lot of arm waving and shouting - in fact there seemed to be much blaming going on throughout, hardly good for team moral. Sylvain Legwinski I couldn't point to for any specific faults, but with him and Walton together nothing was happening. At least Darren Currie's corners provided a goal threat - just at the wrong end.

Roll on Preston, they're due one, aren't they? Surely, please?