Alan Curbishley seems to wear the same expression no matter what mood he is in but he must have been blowing bubbles underneath his steely demeanour after yesterday's 4-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers. For the first time this season, the performance matched the result with various eye catching cameos.
The most important being the midfield - Noble showed what he is made of with some timlely tackles and great inter changing with the silky Scott Parker. Etherington put in lots of effort and looked very happy to have his left back partner George McCartney back later in the game. Faubert and later Behrami offered a threat on the right. Up-front, it did not take long for Craig Bellamy to make his mark returning from injury. If he can stay fit, he really can be the difference for us this season. Cole worked his socks off again.
We did ride our luck at certain points, but to be honest, even if we had lost, it would not have felt like the end of the world. It was similar in that respect to the Spurs match we lost at home 4-3 two seasons ago, in that the belief that it instilled was as important as the result. But where do we go from here? Curbs's biggest challenge now is to keep this up, to do this again at West Brom, to produce at home in a couple of weeks against Newcastle. He has earned the right to prove this by giving us a performance with the kind of football we want to see Upton Park. But will an injury here or there see that train easily de-railed? We'll have to wait and see. Anyway, on to the player ratings;
Green - 8 - Man of the match, brilliant performance, conceding one goal while the man who makes the England squad on the other side of the pitch concedes 4
Neill - 7 - pretty solid game from Lucas and nice assit for the Bellamy goal
Davenport - 6 - nice goal and is a real threat on set-pieces, could do with improving his defensive positioning
Upson - 6 - a very quiet game from Mr Upson but certainly did nothing wrong
Behrami - 6 - better going forward than he is getting back, witness Santa Cruz losing him easily in the box
Etherington - 6.5 - got involved more than he has done recently and looked more of a threat
Noble - 7 - strong performance from Mr Noble, would love to see more of this
Parker - 7 - such a classy plyaer, I really enjoy watching Scott Parker
Faubert - 7 - there are some still giving him a bit of a hard time but I reckon this lad can be a real key player for us
Cole - 7 - strong performance from Carlton only spoiled by a couple of dreadful first touches
Ashton - 6 - not bad from Deano but a bit of a quiet day at the office for him
Curbishley - 8 - got the tactics and subs bang on for this game

