Adrian Goldberg drops 'total strangers' verdict after West Brom draw v Millwall
West Brom played like "total strangers" in the opening quarter of their goalless draw against Millwall, according to Adrian Goldberg.
Carlos Corberan made five changes to Albion's starting line-up for Saturday's [23 September] Championship contest at The Den on the back of the 2-2 draw against Watford earlier in the week.
The Baggies were fortunate not to be behind at half-time as Alex Palmer saved a Zian Flemming penalty, although they did improve after half-time and hit the frame of the goal through both Alex Mowatt and Brandon Thomas-Asante.
Speaking on TheLiquidatorPodcast [25 September, 2m 47s], Goldberg said: "In the first 20 minutes of the Millwall game, the players looked as though they were total strangers. In a way they were."
Reporter Chris Lepkowski added: "It's feast or famine. There's no in between at the moment. I felt in the first half against Millwall, they looked and played like a team that made five changes to the starting line-up.
"There was no cadence to the play - it was extremely slow, extremely lacking in any kind of energy and synergy. There was no cohesion."
Favourite XI?
Corberan handed starts to Kyle Bartley, Conor Townsend, Mowatt, Grady Diangana and Jeremy Sarmiento for the Millwall match, with the likes of Jed Wallace and John Swift dropping to the bench.
The decision to leave out Swift, who had scored four goals in his previous six games, raised eyebrows in particular.
Rotating between midweek and weekend matches is nothing new, of course, but changing half of the outfield starting XI is perhaps a little too extreme.
So that proved against the Lions, with the Baggies taking a lot of time to get fully up to speed.
After a rather indifferent start to the campaign, next weekend's trip to Preston North End has taken on added importance.
With a week off between games, let's just hope Corberan has now found his favourite line-up.