Analysis of Albion 1 Forest 3

This was not the way to say 'goodbye' to Neil Clement - thank goodness Albion at least got the chance to say 'hello' again to Ishmael Miller.

The Baggies gave up their long-held position in the Championship's top two - and "gave up" is the operative term - with a woeful showing against a Nottingham Forest side which joyously leapfrogged Roberto Di Matteo's team in the promotion positions.

Forest's 3-1 victory was no more than they deserved and came from not the kind of Albion performance the long-serving and hugely popular Clement wanted on the night he said a poignant farewell to the fans from the pitch at half-time.

Clement has been forced to retire and for most of this game it looked like his former team-mates had joined him in sympathy.

In what Di Matteo conceded was the worst performance of his reign to date, Albion were a sloppy, complacent mess of a side, riddled by errors, only occasionally interrupted by competence.

God knows where this dreadful showing came from but the least we see of it the better.

And those Albion fans who rewarded the club's hard slog to get this game on in the first place will have departed hoping that in the surprise return of Miller, an undoubted champion in the second tier of English football, they saw a way forward from this worrying setback.

This was Albion's fourth home defeat, a theme Di Matteo admits is beginning to concern him. It should do. Although an icy, frosty pitch tested and frequently defeated the techniques of all the players, it was still too easy for Forest to bottle up the Baggies with their extra energy and solid application of a simple game plan.

Albion looked like a team in need of fresh inspiration and Miller's 15 minute cameo at the end of the game was enough to remind Albion of the powerful attacking threat they have been missing all season. It will be too much to expect him to re-ignite Di Matteo's team instantly but any input he can manage from here on in after his 13 month lay-off has got to be a good thing.

I suspect there will be a vacancy. No one individual captured this disaffected performance more than Luke Moore who offered a first 45 minutes which makes you wonder why he wonders why the fans go potty at him.

Di Matteo removed him at the break and will have a clear conscience about this decision having made big efforts to engage this frustrating player within his team's framework. The Albion boss has given Moore enough rope; sadly, the striker only appears to have hung himself.

He was not alone in his deficiencies, mind, and so a little sympathy, rather than damnation, should be reserved for debut-making defender Gabriel Tamas, who became engulfed by one of his new team's most troubled performances of the campaign. Tamas saw enough, though, to know why the intensity of English football, even at Championship level, is unrivalled in any part of the world - especially when he was caught on his heels at the set-piece which gave Forest their opening goal.

But Albion will hold up a collective hand of responsibility for this massively-disappointing performance which has sucked them back into the pack of chasers instead of returning them to Newcastle's coat tails.

They began sluggishly and got worse; Forest, in contrast, built up momentum from the solid 4-5-1 base Albion must now expect all teams to put before them at The Hawthorns even if their opening goal was the first moment of interest from a featureless first 20 minutes.

The Brummie Road End will contest whether referee Lee Probert was right to call a corner as Jonas Olsson challenged Dexter Blackstock but it proved a fateful decision - Radoslaw Malewski, a player who had interested the Baggies at one stage, put in a routine delivery but Blackstock stole a march on Tamas to score left-footed via the inside of a post.

Albion deteriorated rapidly from that point. In midfield, Gonzalo Jara found both the conditions and Forest's physical power not to his liking; full-backs Joe Mattock and Gianni Zuiverloon were unhinged; Scott Carson's mis-kicked clearance, which might have caused more damage than a corner, summed up his team's growing uncertainty; even the normally steady Olsson was disconcerted by the twin demands of settling in a new partner while trying to shore up Albion.

Chris Brunt remained a fringe figure throughout and although Albion would be the better for their substitutions from the end of this miserable first half, it was only after Forest had established a crushing three-goal lead.

On 52 minutes, Mattock was caught floundering and out-paced by Chris Gunter whose cross to the far post was met by a thumping, left-foot strike by Majewski, full and sweet on the volley. With that shock still reverberating through the Hawthorns system, Forest then produced the best football of the game three minutes later to strike a third that had to be admired - Gunter, Guy Moussi and Paul Anderson were all involved in a passing exchange which eventually saw Chris Cohen beat Carson from the edge of the area.

Now it says everything about the talent which underpins Albion that, having been outplayed for so long, they went on to have enough of the game to perhaps rescue it.

A magnificent pass from Graham Dorrans set up Moore's replacement, Roman Bednar, with 20 minutes remaining - and still Forest keeper Lee Camp twice had to make impressive saves to protect his team's victory.

The first was from an Olsson header set up by Dorrans but it is the second that lightened the gloom - well, a little at any rate - for Albion fans. Miller, replacing Simon Cox, cutting in from the right, switch the ball to his favoured left foot and unleashing a cracker Camp tipped over.

Albion finished the night looking as if they need plenty more of where that came from.

n Albion academy youngster George Thorne signed his first professional contract with the club last night