Corberan: We’ll stay calm and carry on...
HEAD coach Carlos Corberan says his players will remain calm ahead of their final three Championship fixtures with a playoff place still firmly in their hands.
Albion slipped to a shock 1-0 home defeat to Sunderland on Saturday and also lost striker Brandon Thomas-Asante to a red card.
With games to come away to Leicester and Sheffield Wednesday, before hosting Preston on the final day, they are still fifth in the table, a point ahead of sixth-placed Norwich and seven in front of Hull in seventh, who have a game in hand.
“The players, without doubt, will remain calm. The evaluation of the team needs to be done after match number 46,’’ said Corberan.
“We haven’t done anything after 43 games. We still have nine points to play for and we need to give our best to collect them.
“We cannot increase our level of anxiety because that won’t help anyone.
“We need to be fully focused on controlling the things we can control. Unfortunately on Saturday, we didn’t control them as well as we could have done and we were beaten.
“I cannot be frustrated with the performance because the team tried to give their best.
“You can look at the game in two different parts, but we deserved the defeat.
“The first one is that when we were playing 11 v 11, they didn’t create any chances, but at the same time, we should have controlled the ball better and not tried to force the attacks. I saw the game being under our control when it was 11 v 11.
“We had the emotion to win the game, but in football you need to control the emotions you have. “When you are playing with one yellow card, you have to increase the levels of calm in your actions. It’s not the same when you are playing without a yellow card.
“Mistakes are part of the game. We are all human and we all make them, just as I have many times.
“We need to avoid mistakes because mistakes can have an effect on the game, which is what happened.
“For me, one thing which was disappointing was the fact we conceded
the only goal from a set-piece, which is when we had the same number of players because they didn’t attack the corner with every player. It was in a moment when they had less of an advantage.
“When you put these things together, you can understand why the result was 1-0 to Sunderland.
“With ten, the team was giving their best. If we didn’t concede the goal, I don’t think this team would have had a problem in managing this scenario and I think we would have picked up a point.
“They did all they could.
“We’ve had over 18 months without playing with ten.
“It’s the first game since I have been manager here since we have had a player sent off. It’s not a habit we have had to face this circumstance, and certainly not in the first 45 minutes.
“We should have managed the setpieces better, especially the one they scored from, because apart from that, the chances we conceded were more to do with the risks we took trying to get back into the game.”