West Bromwich Albion 1 - Blackburn Rovers 0

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Ratings submitted so far: 22

Brendan Clegg:

Game 1 of a season in which I have the lowest expectations in around 20 years - and I don’t think I’m alone.

The Hawthorns looked polished and the standing rails at the back of the Smethwick End gave me something to lean on as I watched the warmup and pondered the first 11.

No real surprises given where we’re at - everyone knowing we need to make one or two big sales to rebalance the squad as we desperately need to, and the absences of Bany and Dike. I’m sure we were all intrigued to see the style of play, and the atmosphere was noisy and pretty good.

I think in the first half we saw a lot of hard work and aggression with the players fighting for everything but I would say it was direct and low-risk. Heggebø won two 60/40s against him in the first five minutes which I thought showed some promise at least.

Otherwise it was a bit attritional for both teams and we actually took the lead before I think we’d even managed to have a period of stringing 3-4 passes together - a long throw from Furlong causing havoc, a clever and selfless prod to Price from Heggebø and the crowd erupted.

As the half went on we did manage to play a bit and did put some decent moves together that had that ‘not quite’ early season rustiness to them… the best chance was a bit of a sitter where Heggebø and Price went for the same ball and the keeper saved from point blank.

The slight worry was the cheapness in which we surrendered possession, went long too soon or just hooked the ball away instead of getting it down. Blackburn though were poor and we saw the half out.

Second half was back to the attritional stuff and although Price nearly grabbed a second after winning it high and darting through, we started to look tired and lost control of it.

Blackburn got subs on early and just tried to make it awkward for us. Despite their superior possession and pressure, we defended pretty well and Griffiths wasn’t called into action.

We also made fairly sensible subs to bring on height and power, with Wallace, Diakite and Campbell all doing okay to snuff out any threats.

The Furlong second yellow looked a bit harsh but you run that risk when you commit cynical fouls, even though I thought far worse Blackburn challenges didn’t get a yellow.

Overall… very early days and we all expect the squad to be quite different by the end of the window. Absolutely no issue from me with this style of play in the short term - being tough, resilient and no pushovers will doubtless get us results until the squad is settled. A decent start and something to build on in what is likely to be a very busy last few weeks of August.

• Griffiths - 6 Did everything okay. Not much to do. One moment where he possibly should have given Heggem a shout.
• Furlong - 5 Lost a mark for the red card, was mostly okay but had a poor last 30 minutes.
• Phillips - 7 Impressive. Definitely a leader who goes for everything.
• Heggem - 7 Maybe the last time we’ll see him. Very classy, read problems before they were there.
• Styles - 6 Energy and tenacious
• Molumby - 7 Loved running around and slamming into people. His type of game.
• Mowatt - 6 Got stuck in but didn’t control the midfield.
• Fellows - 6 We didn’t play well enough on the ball to get him into it but he was still full of running.
• Price - 7 Lots to like. A threat, mobile, seems to surprise people with 5 yard bursts. One or two ‘young’ decisions but as he matures he’ll get better.
• Grant - 5 For me the lack of quality stood out although he did graft in the second half.
• Heggebø - 6 Strong and fought for everything. Might have scored. Was bright red from about 30 minutes so I think he found the heat and pace tough but think he’ll do okay as he gets sharper.

• Wallace - 6 Reliable cameo.
• Diakite - 6 Gave us more presence
• Campbell - can’t really mark but sub made sense