Barclays Premier League
Tony Mowbray has given up chocolate for Lent - and West Ham have given up football.
Chocoholic West Brom boss Mowbray keeps his office fridge stocked with treats for his sweet tooth, but not even the Milk Tray man could have saved this abomination from its dreary fate.
At the end of the most expensive day in West Ham's history, perhaps it was fitting that a £25million bill to settle the tedious Carlos Tevez soap opera should be followed by a paupers' banquet.
And while the Hammers stumbled on the road to Europe in front of their lowest Premier League gate of the season, Mowbray can take only crumbs of comfort from a game Albion dominated.
As if they hadn't been clobbered enough by m'learned friends' haggling over Tevez, West Ham's point came at another high price as England defender Matthew Upson was carried off with a calf injury in front of Three Lions coach Fabio Capello.
Upson is the third Hammers star to be carted from the premises on a stretcher in as many games following Valon Behrami's ruptured ligaments and Jack Collison's dislocated kneecap. But it would be stretching the point to say West Ham's rhythm was disrupted by Upson's injury - because they had none all night.
Manager Gianfranco Zola took his squad away to Marbella last week for warmweather training.
Next time he should save the club a few bob and just buy a few canisters of spray-on tan instead. Despite the keen competition, most impoverished performance of the night came from record £9m signing Savio, the Ugandan-born German Under-19 international who didn't look like he knew rhyming slang from Vorsprung durch Technik.
Sportingly, Zola cocked a deaf ear to the boos, saying: "It doesn't bother me too much - it just makes me think even deeper to try and find a solution.
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"To be honest, we were nothing like the team we have been in recent weeks, and the injuries didn't help, but West Brom didn't play like a side at the bottom."
Anchored to the basement, and more adrift than Robinson Crusoe, a point does little to ease the Baggies' plight as wooden spoonists.
They probably deserved to nick only their second away win of the season.
Skipper Jonathan Greening blazed their best chance over the top however, and Hammers skipper Lucas Neill got away with blatant shirtpulling on Paul Robinson from Chris Brunt's corner.
Shelton Martis, 21, also headed Brunt's left-wing cross against the bar, although Hammers keeper Robert Green was poleaxed in the aerial jostling by Jonas Olsson's stray elbow. Had Martis, who made an assured Premier League debut, directed his effort an inch lower, referee Mark Halsey's appetite for controversy would have been sorely tested.
"The players told me it was a foul, and Robert needed lengthy treatment to his face - but that's OK, he has never been a good-looking man anyway!" quipped Zola.
As for Mowbray ... the trapdoor awaits, but at least he can still look on the bright side.
Only three weeks to go until that next chocolate bar, mate.
West Ham: Green 7, Neill 5, Tomkins 6, Upson 6 (Spector, 29, 5), Ilunga 6, Parker 6, Kovac 6, Noble 6 (Boa Morte 81), Savio 4 (Stanislas, 68, 6), Di Michele 5, Sears 5.
West Brom: Carson 6, Zuiverloon 7, Olsson 7, Dorrans 7, Robinson 6, Greening 6, Koren 6, Martis 8, Brunt 7 (Simpson 80), Morrison 6 (Teixeira 88), Fortune 7 (Moore 80).
Ref: Mark Halsey
Att: 30,842
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