West Bromwich Albion 2 - Bristol City 0

Date:	Sunday 22nd December 2024
Competition:	Sky Bet Championship
WBA: 6.9	Palmer 6.6, Furlong 6.5, Bartley 6.3, Holgate 6.9, Heggem 6.8, Fellows 7.4 (Wallace, 73 5.4), Mowatt 7.9, Swift 6.7 (Dobbin, 81 4.1), Molumby 6.4 (Racic, 54 6.4), Johnston 8.1 (Diangana, 73 6.0), Maja 6.4 (Cole, 81 4.2) Unused subs: Wildsmith, Diakité, McNair, Frabotta Manager: Carlos Corberán 6.3
Bristol C: 4.6
Scorers:	Johnston (34, 43)
Referee:	Thomas Kirk 5.5
Attendance:	25,910 Home Fans 6.9 Away Fans 5.6

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Ratings submitted so far: 20

Brendan Clegg:

No Grant meant that Swift got the nod and probably the other tricky call was keeping Holgate in at CB instead of shifting Heggem and putting in Styles.

Other than that it was our best team. I thought we started much better at Watford than here… we were a lot slower, patient, Swift dropping deep and doing the rondos with Mowatt meant we looked good without going anywhere. Bristol didn’t look any good either, the conditions were awful at times and it all felt a bit dull. I thought Bristol had a good shout for a penalty too.

Thankfully, Fellows was given the ball early on one occasion and he did what he does - step over, half a yard, decent cross and Johnston stole in to nod home unmarked. Honestly the amount of times we get to that situation on both wings, take 4 touches and come backwards… just stick it in there!

After that we were better and more rondos from Mowatt and Swift, joined by Maja, opened up Bristol and Johnston raced onto it, jinked inside and slammed home. A really lovely goal and we saw out the half.

2nd half as the game opened up we played some great stuff and should’ve added more via Fellows, Maja or Cole but it was a quality showing with some good cameos off the bench. Molumby was rightly hooked before he was sent off for a second booking and it was the right call to rest a few.

A decent but necessary win. We’ve got to follow it up at Derby.

Palmer - 6 nowt to do
Furlong - 6 Solid enough in tricky conditions
Holgate - 6 Also okay but got done once an absolute kipper way too easily
Barts - 6 The same player also did our captain in the same way, so he took him out at the knee for a yellow. Didn’t happen again.
Heggem - 6 Mr reliable
Fellows - 7 Essential to us. Brought the supply.
Mowatt - 7 Totally ran it on the ball, won tackles, was everywhere
Molumby - 6 Silly booking but top energy
MJ - 6 Was atrocious before his goal… passed it to them or jumped out of tackles. A different player after the goal and was superb afterwards.
Swift - 7 Not dangerous but used it really well and fought when needed
Maja - 7 Some of his touches were sublime. Deserved a goal.

Racic - 6 Steady
Wallace - 6 Loved that 40 yard track back and recovery tackle
Cole - 6 Not for the first time I thought he brought something different and looked busy. Should’ve scored maybe.
Dobbin - 5 Looks a good year away if ever, needs to drop a league
Grady - 6 creative

Kev Buckley:

Grant's unavailability saw a return of the Number 10 role, with Swift. having seemingly fallen way behind the nominally left-sided Grant and Diangana, and the right-sided Wallace, in the playmaker stakes, finally getting a start there.

Albion kept the ball across the backline from the kick-off, for about a minute and a half, before Palmer was forced to boot it straight into touch.

Six minutes in and with the dereadful conditions always suggesting that there might be a "keeper error", Swift took the ball from a free kick some 30 yards out and tested the Robins' custodian, who effected an unconvincing save as the ball skidded off the turf in front of him.

Ten minutes later and Bartley should have hit the target with a header from a free-kick but put it over, before Johnston, almost getting free down the left, pulled up looking very lame, but somehow seemed able to run it off and then play the starring role.

Molumby got played in through the inside right channel but, despite having a clear sight of goal, chose to square it and saw the chance of a shot on target go begging, before, a minute later, making more than enough contact with a player in our box to have seen a penalty given, but it wasn't.

As thirty-three passed, we had goal out of nothing, Fellows delivering a gorgeous cross from the byeline that was met by Johnston, moving unmarked from the spot to head home, unchallanged, from eight or so out, for his first goal since rejoining permanently.

Palmer would have to be alert to keep out a back-post header before yet another goal out of nothing all but put the game to bed. Maja, continually dropping deep to help nulify Bristol's build up, seemed to have coughed up posession before then playing at least three touches in a move that saw Johnston played in one-on-one with the right full back, and we finally got to see last season's Johnston cutting across the defender and firing a right-footed effort into the far side of the goal. Keeper might have done a bit better for me but who cares!?

Bristol had clearly taken note of Swift's "early doors" long range effort and got off one of their own as the second half started, with Palmer just about as effective as his counterpart had been.

Johnston should have completed a hat-trick on 53 but scuffed his shot wide when set up in the inside-left channel, before next choosing not to set up a unmarked Swift after a run across the box and not troubling the keeper, before Fellows showed that whatever his opposite number could choose to do poorly, he could do just as poorly in once again failing to set up the unmarked man at the top of the box as he dribbled inside.

The double substitution around the seventy minute mark - Racic having come on for an already yellow-carded and clearly fired-up Molumby - was almost a throwback to the "good old days" in that we saw an attacking three of, reading from left to right, Diangana, Swift and Wallace, a three which had once looked amongst the best in the division, not that all that it promised lasted long, with Swift and Maja being pulled for Dobbin and Cole with ten to go, the latter spurning a gilt-edged chance to send us into the top six on goal difference over Xmas when played in behind the Bristol back-line by a sublime delivery by Diangana.

If there was a "Christmas Gift" to be taken from this one then it surely has to be the realisation that, despite all we're constantly being told about Corberan having to work with so little, there is, as a number of us have opined all season, still actually a pretty decent squad there, barring any obvious realistic second option for the number nine role.

So here's to a New Year in which Corberan not only gets more out of what he actually has, but also gets, either from returns to fitness or procurements, the missing pieces.