Baggies are a different animal under new boss
IN-FORM Albion made it eight wins in their last nine Championship games with a 1-0 triumph over Reading to move within a point of the play-off zone.
Daryl Dike’s goal on the hour was the difference between the sides at The Hawthorns but the Baggies would have been out of sight by half-time had they converted their chances.
The result, on an afternoon which saw home fans continue their protests against owner Guochuan Lai, meant Albion have not conceded a goal in open play in 877 minutes. Here are the talking points from Monday’s game.
Happy anniversary
It was a year and a day since Albion announced Dike as their new striker. As a rule, they don’t spend money in the January window – Jake Livermore is the only other significant addition in the last few years – but Lai sanctioned the deal after making a trip over from China.
What followed was a catastrophic 12 months for Dike, who suffered injury setback after injury setback and ultimately wrote off the entirety of 2022. His recent winner at Sunderland offered a sample of what we might expect and he has now kicked off 2023 in the manner in which he will hope to continue.
Valerien Ismael worked for his signature, Steve Bruce was denied his services, but under head coach Carlos Corberan he has all the tools to succeed. Dike might have scored before bagging the winner, and while his early finishing seemed rusty, the quality he showed to stoop low and glance Jayson Molumby’s centre past Joe Lumley was not up for debate.
“He had a long-term injury but he’s a very important player for us,” Corberan said of his £7 million man. “The fitter he is, the better it is for the team. The more he trains, the better condition he’s in to perform.
“So there isn’t any doubt he’s one very important player for us that we need to keep controlling, because he’s one player we need in the box.”
Corberan added: “I think sometimes he plays against himself because he tries to do a lot of things. In the first half he made a lot of runs but not all in the right areas. But in the second half he was in the areas he needed to be a lot more.”
Albion’s ‘animal’ bargain
For the most part of this season, Molumby has been an unsung hero. He has been performing consistently, whether his side were underperforming under Bruce or otherwise. Yet with their vast improvement in performance, Molumby has also taken it up a notch and has been particularly good since coming back into the side after Christmas.
On reflection, Corberan made a rare mistake in starting John Swift and Tom Rogic at Coventry, but Molumby has begun the last three fixtures and his displays have improved game on game. He complemented the outstanding Okay Yokuslu against Preston, but here it was the Irishman’s turn to grab the limelight in the centre of the pitch.
He possesses and demonstrates all the qualities supporters admire. He is fearless in the tackle and never at any stage in a game does he stop giving everything he has for the collective cause. He complemented that fighting personality with a bit of quality for the winning assist.
Molumby has proved to be a real bargain, costing less than £1 million
from Brighton, and his performance here was not lost on his boss, who said: “It’s important for every player to go onto the pitch when they’re in the first XI with the mentality to compete, this is what Molumby is doing. He is working as an animal and that’s what football demands of you.”
Protests ramped up
It is odd that you spend 90 minutes inside The Hawthorns cheering your players on, celebrating as Dike scores and breathing a sigh of relief at fulltime as your club’s eighth win in nine matches is finally secured before heading out and joining a sizeable protest.
But that’s Albion in a nutshell at the moment – the attitude towards the on-field and off-field dynamics is poles apart. Under the Action for Albion movement, supporters took to the street in Halfords Lane where they aimed chants at Lai and unfurled banners demanding he sells up and leaves the club. Lai has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons recently – if it’s not about this loan, it’s about that loan.
The fans have had enough. They are no longer prepared to stand by. The torches will continue to shine in the 12th minute of the first half, or second half. Sit-ins have been discussed, but it is anticipated these protests will continue to accelerate and increase in volume until they can be heard as far away as China.
Time to take stock
Albion are not back in Championship action for a couple of weeks. Depending on how they go at Chesterfield in the FA Cup, they might not be playing at The Hawthorns in the league – where they have won their last five games to nil – until early February, when Coventry visit.
There will be no letting up on Corberan’s watch when it comes to the training pitch, but you would imagine he will likely make a number of changes to his side for their visit to the non-league Spireites on Saturday.
There are now 20 games remaining in the league. Albion sit on the edge of the play-offs and have made up a couple of points on Sheffield United, who are 13 ahead of them in second place.
They will need a near-flawless run from now until the end of the season to claim automatic promotion, though, which is effectively five more wins than the Blades.
Questions will be asked. What might have been had Albion removed Bruce from his post earlier than they did? It is a bit like when they failed to sack Alan Pardew before it was too late and, despite Darren Moore’s best efforts, he just didn’t have the games in hand.
Corberan’s impact has rekindled hope – you just hope there isn’t a nagging sense of ‘what if?’ come May.