Goal-crazy Baggies bubbling with confidence

KYLE BARTLEY says West Brom cannot serve ‘champagne football’ every week – but the Championship goal machines will always go for the jugular.

Albion grabbed a routine 2-0 win over Millwall to make it 22 league goals in nine games.

It took the Baggies a sorry 28 matches and six months to hit that mark when they were in the top flight last season.

“We showed we can win more than one way and I think that is massive,” said former Arsenal and Rangers defender Bartley.

“The mentality is always to try to score goals. That is what the boss wants.

“With the fire-power we have, we would be fools not to use that. There won’t be many games where we won’t score goals.”

Newcastle loanee Dwight Gayle’s fifth goal of the season and Kieran Gibbs’s second sent Albion up to third.

With Jay Rodriguez, Harvey Barnes and Matt Phillips also among the goals, Bartley says Albion must continue to place the emphasis on offence. “But it won’t be champagne football every game – you can’t expect that,” he said.

“Look at Manchester City last season. Even though they’ve got their style, sometimes they had to adapt and that’s what we will do.”

Albion’s clean sheet was their first in the Championship this season

“Clean sheets are a great bonus,” said Bartley. “As a defender, that’s what I aim for but I think you can see in this team that we will always score goals.

“We do sacrifice a little bit defensively in order to be a threat up front. I’m sure the gaffer will agree with me in that sometimes these games where you grind out a result are much more pleasing than the 5-0s or 6-0s.”

Bartley is happy playing on the left of a three-man central defence, despite being rightfooted.

“It’s a little different and it’s difficult but we’ve done a lot of work to try and improve that,” he said.

“Wherever I’m asked to play I’ll get on with it. I’ll never make anything of it or moan or be frustrated. It’s all about the team.”

A sixth game without a win sees Millwall in the bottom three but defender Byron Webster, playing his first game in a year after surgery to repair a cruciate ligament, says the Lions are on the way up.

“We knew we had to go back to basics, be hard to beat, and put in a Millwall performance to get the fans behind us,” he said.

“We were under the cosh yet there are smiles on the faces. We enjoyed the battle. We kept going to the end and it will stand us in good stead.” Millwall boss Neil Harris said: “When we are as good as we were at times in the first half we have to be clinical – we had three good chances to score.”