West Bromwich Albion 2 - Rotherham United 0

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Ratings submitted so far: 13

Brendan Clegg:

With Rotherham already relegated Carlos took a bit of a gamble in making quite a few changes and experimenting a bit.

But move along, nothing to see here, it was a very routine victory where we didn't get out of neutral let alone 1st gear.

In fairness to Rotherham they tried to be competitive but after a bit of a shakey start and a few period where they put us under a bit of pressure we were just too good individually and collectively for them.

Our first goal was a lovely move. Yokuslu dropped into left back (almost a back 3) for much of the game allowing Reach to bomb on, and so he was advanced of MJ who put a beauty of a ball to him. The cut back was spot-on and BTA was there to score the kind of 6 yard box tap-in that I genuinely think, given he's still young and his overall improvement, will if repeated regularly will elevate him to a 20-25 goal a season championship striker by his late twenties. (He could have got a lot nearer to that in this game alone!)

The penalty was just an awful decision. I cannot ever recall the Smethwick booing a penalty that we'd been awarded or chanting you don't know what you're doing, but there were some. Bizarre... I just don't know how he saw that, how an assistant ref didn't intervene. Even from the back of the stand you could see the player was miles outside the area. Maybe they do even themselves out but deary me. You're always confident Swift will put it away and he did.

I don't think it made a difference or changed the result. Had we not got the penalty I think we'd have pushed a bit more for a second and got one at some point but once it was in it was game over. Rotherham looked to avoid a pasting and CC looked to manage the legs of everyone.

2nd half we should have added a couple more through BTA but it was about getting through it, and it was useful to get minutes into the legs of Ajayi, Phillips (who looked improved and stronger again) and Maja.

With results having gone our way, a win on Saturday might well be enough and we'll hopefully have our strongest squad of the season available... it'll be very difficult to choose a best 11.

There were no bad performances but nobody had to exert themselves.

• Palmer - 6 No danger and just great feet all night.
• Furlong - 6 Solid and reliable.
• Barts - 6 Touch of ropeyness early on but overall it was easy
• Kipre - 6 Mostly a walk in the park
• Reach - 6 Great on the ball, good assist, they did get at him defensively first 10 and cause us a few problems
• Yok - 6 Followed CC's asks to the letter, cruised through it and picked up unusual deep left positions
• M'Vila - 6 Was both rusty but also showed his undoubted quality... passing and positioning was good and worked really hard.
• Fellows - 6 Direct and exciting
• Swift - 6 Deep and patient, saw lots of it, nice touches and nice pen
• MJ - 6 Flashes of style and quality, had a bit of fun
• BTA - 6 Caused them lots of problems but should've had a hat-trick. Worked hard.

• Semi - 6 Solid
• Phillips - 6 Showed he's closer just with classy and smart use of the ball
• Chalobah - 6 Did okay but wasn't facing the ball a few times
• Maja - Few touches but will just be good to get back out there