Never let it be said that good fortune doesn’t come into football.
A ball falling into somebody’s path, a lucky deflection away from a defender into a striker’s path, a referee not seeing an incident and getting it wrong.
West Bromwich Albion could do no wrong at the start of the season. Victories against the great and good of the Premier League gave hope. False hope perhaps?
Roberto Di Matteo feels that luck has now deserted his Baggies side.
He has a point.
Two players sent off at Blackpool – one deemed to have been dismissed incorrectly, which probably impacted on the second one making a rash challenge – was followed by the return of Carlos Tevez to the Manchester City side visiting The Hawthorns.
And then along came West Ham, Wigan and Stoke – a pinch of abject form, stirred in with, again, the odd bit of bad refereeing and rotten luck.
And then there are the injuries. First Jonas Olsson misses a few plus more. And then Chris Brunt picks up a knock during a pointless friendly for Northern Ireland.
Di Matteo looks back at the last five games – one point from a possible 15 - and shakes his head.
“I don’t think we’ve been rewarded for what we’ve produced,” said the Italian. “The performance levels have been good but sometimes you need decisions to go for you.
“At West Ham United, we were three versus two and one of our players made the wrong decision when we were heading towards goal.
“Suspensions, injuries – Brunt, Olsson are big players for us.
“Liverpool miss Torres and Gerrard and aren’t the same team. Lampard, Terry, Drogba at Chelsea – it’s the same thing.
“But, we will keep fighting – I want my team to keep fighting.”
Unpredicatability is catching, claims Di Matteo, whose side take on Everton this Saturday.
“It’s very balanced at the moment. Anybody can beat anybody. Top can beat bottom, bottom can beat top. Look at Birmingham’s result. They’ve now got the same points as us so we take everything in perspective.
