West Bromwich Albion 2 - Coventry City 1

Date:	Friday 1st March 2024
Competition:	Sky Bet Championship
WBA: 6.5	(4-2-3-1) Palmer 6.6, Furlong 5.4, Kipré 6.5, Pieters 6.3, Townsend 6.4 (Reach, 65 5.1), Yokuslu 6.9 (Chalobah, 70 3.5), Mowatt 8.0, Fellows 7.4 (Bartley, 80 6.2), Diangana 5.4 (Weimann, 69 4.0), Johnston 7.6 (Swift, 65 4.3), Wallace 5.8 Unused subs: Griffiths, Ajayi, Marshall, Ávila Gordón Manager: Carlos Corberán 5.8
Coventry: 5.5
Scorers:	Diangana (36), Johnston (6)
Referee:	Lewis Smith 6.1
Attendance:	24,839 Home Fans 7.4 Away Fans 6.7

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Ratings submitted so far: 14

Brendan Clegg:

Another big win at The Shrine but it was closer than it might’ve been.

CC went with no changes and from the off we looked a threat although I thought early on we lost the ball weakly in attacking areas too often.

We kept it quite well and we’re on top when MJ picked up the ball, megged his fullback, shimmied inside and put the ball in at the far post. The crowd went mental as it was a special goal.

I’ll say it again - some talent this kid, would love to see him in the middle with Mowatt and Yok doing all the work behind him. Could be devastating. Still can’t believe Celtic let him go on loan based upon this as he grafts too.

After that, in a theme I felt ran through the game, Cov caused us problems but thankfully panicked in our final 3rd. The amount of times they shot wildly when patience and composure would’ve got them in was scary.

We got lucky with a free header and shot from a corner before a lovely move saw Fellows beat his man, chip a cross and Grady stroked home for 2-0.

Second half we were for before the pretty understandable subs weakened us.

Reach and Pieters on our left side worried me about pace but it was Chalobah, Swift and Weimann who were woefully inept on the ball that meant we kept giving it away.

We had breaks we didn’t make the most of and we were cheap in possession. Simms especially continued to waste our gifts but the pen was daft by Kipre and we created an awkward last 15.

Thankfully Barts came on, we went 5-4-1 and snuffed the gave out.

Two great goals and a win so we can’t complain. A big opportunity to get another away win on Wednesday.

Palmer - 6 Solid, no errors
Furlong - 6 Caught in possession a few times but defended well
Kipre - 6 Lots of good but deffo a penalty
Pieters - 7 Mostly good, some stray passes
Townsend - 6 On top. Hope injury isn’t too bad
Yok - 7 Some bad passes but holds us together
Mowatt - 8 Short game and calmness just top level
Fellows - 7 Dangerous when supplied
Grady - 6 Hit and miss. Great goal but too weak too often
MJ - 7 his goal was better than his game. Always a threat
Jed - 7 out of position but had a right go

Chalobah - 3 was he a sabotage agent? Gave it away all the time.
Reach - 6 Did okay and tried to keep it
Swift - 5 Cheap on the ball but battled
Weimann - 5 No impact
Barts - 6 Sound defensive job

oshawabaggie:

We got away with one. We went from total control to total panic. Overall, I like Corberan but our substitutions completely disrupted us. At 65 minutes I reached for another stiff one to get me through to 90 minutes. 2-0 up - why put Reach on when we have Ajayi and Bartley on the bench?

And...we nearly gave another goal away from a short corner. Stay awake FFS.

First half, we were brilliant. Second half, shaky.

Enough of me whining. A great week. A new committed owner and a crucial win. BOING BOING!

Welcome again, Shilen Patel.

Kev Buckley:

Never mind the quality: count the wide players scoring

Over a weekend where the six teams who might still be considered to be part of a chasing pack played each other, Albion, 5th, and Coventry, 9th, started things off by demonstrating why the top four are so far off in the distance with a very poor game, that Albion won, courtesy of two goals from their two shots on target, both coming from left-wingers.

The first goal came out of nothing, after Mikey Johnston, standing still on the touchline, feinted to go outside his full back, but then nutmegged him to cut inside, and started to jink across the field before curling a fabulous right-footed strike into the far side of the goal. Superb individual effort, and coming only six minutes in.

It didn't really seem to inspire the Albion though, and around the twenty-minute mark, we were nearly undone by another short corner routine. It looked like there were two free men at our back post, who might have cushioned in a similar goal to the one we conceded at Soton, but Coventry's routine saw a shot worked on the left side of the edge of the box, similar to the one from which we conceded on the right against Hull, however, like a lot of their chances on the night, and there were a lot of them, Coventry's final shot went a long way from our goal.

Neither side really seemed capable of creating all that much, but with both sides coughing up possession to the other, some chances went begging, Yokuslu's error on the edge of his own box, as thirty minutes passed, a standout.

Albion finally got the ball into an advanced wide area six minutes later with Fellows getting to run at his marker, whom he easily beat, before delivering a cross that looked likely to find Wallace as he made a run outside the near post, however, the makeshift number nine had the presence of mind to run past the ball and allow it travel on to where Diangana, the makeshift number ten, was arriving to volley home. Nice team goal, which came thirty six minutes in.

Albion, admittedly two goals to the good, seemed to come out playing as if knock it around for the whole of the second half if possible, rather than looking to put Coventry away, although with many players switching off (or not even having switched on?) and giving the ball away, the Sky Blues stayed in the game.

When Townsend went down injured on 64, the obvious replacement seemed to be Pieters moving out there, with either Bartley or Ajayi coming into the middle, but instead we got both left-sided wide players replaced: Reach on at full-back, and, bizarrely, Swift on for Johnston. Maybe the manager has noticed the two subs forming a good left-sided understanding in training of late?

Chalobah for Yokuslu, and Weimann for Diangana, was the next cab off the double substitution rank, and just five minutes later, so it's not as though the first swap had been given much of a chance to change anything but, maybe there was only one plan, but two double substitutions waste more time than a quadruple one?

Despite the four new faces, Coventry were still offered chance after chance to try and get back in the game and when their left winger cut across the box in a similar way to that in which Johnston had for his goal, Kipre got his go-to-ground block-cum-challenge all wrong and the ref had no option but to point to the spot. Coventry hit the target, for only the third time in the game, with the penalty.

It didn't take long for Bartley to be added into a five-man back line, at the expense of Fellows, although Coventry, no longer having to worry about Albion looking to go forwards, were still winning corners as the game moved into five minutes of stoppage time, within which they'd win a couple more, without being able to add to their attempts-on-target tally.

If, in Saturday's other chasing pack match-ups, Sunderland beat Norwich, and Hull beat Preston, then we'll be seven points clear of seventh, which would be a very handy place to be, and even more so after a coming up with a second-half performance like that, even though it, and the game as a whole, showed that we probably aren't going to have to worry about Coventry catching us up.

Surely we will try and be a bit more threatening in seeing off QPR and Huddersfield next week, then again, as both of those games are away from home, maybe we'll be forced into having to play with some attacking intent throughout the whole game, having gone behind in it as we often do away from home.