By Jack Watson
I did not go to this one, I watched parts of it at home and in the car on Tigers+, so I will keep it short. I did watch enough of it to witness all four goals and I have to say, I was not expecting this scoreline; we had two back-to-back wins against two great sides coming into this game. On the contrary, we had some set-backs due to injuries; Lokilo, Philogene and Sinik were all out and Connolly picked up an injury during his warm-up. Also, we have not won at The Hawthorns since 2008.
Rosenior made two changes to the starting eleven that triumphed over Preston on Saturday; Ozan Tufan and Tyler Morton for Jason Lokilo and Jaden Philogene. That meant, in a 4-2-3-1 formation, our line-up was as follows: Ryan Allsop in goal; Lewie Coyle, Alfie Jones, Sean McLoughlin and Jacob Greaves as the back line; Jean Seri and Tyler Morton below them and Scott Twine, Ozan Tufan and Adama Traore were above Liam Delap, who was up-front on his own. As I have stated, we had some key figures missing today and we lacked energy and quality.
In the first half, I only saw a good 30 minutes as my link was playing up. Nevertheless, the football I saw from us in that period of time was not as good as it could have been. West Brom came out like it was the FA Cup final and really took it to us. Inevitably, it did not take them long to take the lead; in the 14th minute, Allsop played the ball out to Seri, who gifted the ball to an onrushing Wallace, who reacted quickly and calmly slotted it in the far-right corner of the net. Again, this was due to playing from the back. What is wrong with booting it up-field to a player making a run? It worked against Stoke.
We did, however, respond superbly and managed to get back into the game. We were keeping the ball well and dominating in possession. The only thing we were not doing is creating goal scoring opportunities. Until, just before the break in the 41st minute. Twine received the ball on the left-wing, drove to the edge of the box and swung a dangerous ball towards captain, Lewie Coyle, who whalloped it into the back of the net. That was more like it.
The first half ended square.
I have to say we did come out as the better team; keeping up the possession, getting the ball into good positions and keeping the home side quiet. There was a moment in this period of dominance where we looked really solid; however, one attack from West Brom poured water over our spark and put us out of the contest. In the 65th minute, Diangana was released down the right-wing, cut inside Jacob Greaves and showed great composure to play a ball across to Phillips–unmarked–who slotted it home.
Then, just five minutes later, they secured the three points, which was very unexpected considering we were in control of the game just 10 minutes ago. Their third goal came from substitute Ajayi when his shot in the box deflected off Jacob Greaves and into the back of the net. An absolute disaster.
I watched up to this point and had to turn it off. Not because of the scoreline, but I had to set some fireworks off, which were much better than the game. I checked the score after the game finished, though, and saw we failed to come back–what a surprise.
This was such a shame as I thought we were going to go on a run and regain our unbeaten streak. But, we cannot always get what we want and as Rosenior put it: ‘it is just football and it happens’. Fortunately, our upcoming fixtures are not too difficult and it should be a brilliant chance to turn it around.
