James Morrison believes West Bromwich Albion have learned their lessons from the Mowbray era

Nov 21 2010 by Christopher Lepkowski, Sunday Mercury

IT was two games against one club which epitomised everything wrong about Albion’s last Premier League campaign.

The fixtures against Everton underlined everything which didn’t work with Tony Mowbray’s Baggies side.

Nothing up top, with little defensive cover at the other end.

The opening Toffees game, at The Hawthorns, was to signal the first sound of the alarm bells we were to hear all too often.

Two errors, both involving Abdoulaye Meite, helped Everton cruise to a two-goal lead through Leon Osman and Yakubu Ayegbeni before Roman Bednar restored late hope. That was in August.

The return fixture wasn’t much better. It was the final day in February and, by now, Albion were in relegation trouble.

They were to lose 2-0 after goals from Tim Cahill and a brilliant long-range effort from Louis Saha condemned Albion to defeat.

But it wasn’t a 2-0 defeat as we know it – Albion, again, dominated the entire game. Again they were punished.

Roberto Di Matteo’s men return to the scene of the second of those two games next weekend.

But those games against the Toffees in 2008-09 remain fresh for James Morrison.

“Everton was a harsh lesson for us, both times,” said Morrison. “Two of the games which stick in people’s minds are those games.

“At home we battered them and they had one attack and scored. We made another mistake and they scored again.