Bruce and Carroll can get tune out of Albion
STEVE Bruce’s first home game in charge of West Brom ended in a 0-0 draw against promotion-chasing rivals Blackburn at The Hawthorns.
The new boss enjoyed a warm reception from the home supporters but was reminded how difficult his task will be after Albion failed to break down a determined Rovers side.
The Baggies had the better of the chances as goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski denied Andy Carroll, while Adam Reach was foiled by a desperate clearance from Tyrhys Dolan near the end.
West Brom have now gone more than six hours without scoring as Bruce picked up his first point.
Here are the talking points.
Stopped the rot
It’s baby steps. Albion took a point and it was probably, on the face of it, a fair outcome.
Quality was desperately thin on the ground across the pitch but they looked as likely as scoring as they did at Sheffield United and Millwall. Against Preston, too, for that matter.
If you can’t score, don’t concede. Ben Brereton-Diaz is among the best marksmen in this division and he looked sharp, but Matt Clarke and Semi Ajayi were both more assured after lining up for the first time as a duo in the defeat at Bramall Lane. With Kyle Bartley soon to return and Dara O’Shea waiting in the wings, Bruce has options there. Thankfully, Albion’s defence showed signs of its usual solidity, which is form that must be maintained until May.
Barn door and banjo
It is now 10 league games in the last 14 where Albion have failed to hit the back of the net. It’s becoming farcical.
For no significant period of play on Monday night did they look particularly likely to breach a defence which had lost the towering Daniel Ayala to injury in the warm-up.
Karlan Grant and Callum Robinson were desperately poor in the inside-forward roles, and Grady Diangana didn’t do any better when
he was introduced in the second half.
Albion are sitting in eighth spot but will go nowhere fast unless they rediscover their shooting boots, which have largely deserted them since the first handful of matches in the campaign.
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Something to build around
Not for the first time in his short
Albion career, Carroll was the pick of the outfield players. He was applauded off the field and reciprocated as he headed down the tunnel at the end of his first home match.
He looks fit, brings aggression and a serious aerial prowess we haven’t seen in the final third at Albion for quite some time. Carroll clearly still has fire in his belly.
He outlined upon arriving that he is here to play games regularly and try to achieve something at a club which can still secure promotion from this division.
But he has become more than just a Daryl Dike stop-gap – he now needs to be the man Bruce builds this team around. Carroll appears the only one not too affected by the Valerien Ismael era – he did, after all, arrive a matter of days before the new manager.
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Season-defining week
Albion have two games on the road in the next week, and how they fare is likely to point to where they will finish this season.
First, they head south to Luton on Saturday. It wouldn’t have been deemed a play-off-defining fixture on paper at the beginning of the season, and the Hatters’ rise is as much to do with that as Albion’s struggles, but it’s where the respective clubs find themselves.
Then, next Tuesday, they ride north to Middlesbrough to take on a side managed by the man who could well have been in their own dug-out last summer had things fallen into place.
The middle of the Championship is notoriously tight. You can rise or fall a handful of places week by week depending on your results, but there is a sense of foreboding if Bruce can’t tease his first win out of this group in the next seven days.