TRIPLE-HEADER RONDON’S THE HAT-TRICK HERO
SALOMON RONDON headed a 13-minute hat-trick as West Brom crushed struggling Swansea.
Rondon stormed back, after missing a first-half sitter and wasting another chance, to send Swansea to yet another away disaster with goals on 50, 61 and 63 minutes.
Swansea had started well against a lethargicg Albion, but the Baggies picked themselves up, especially £12m centre forward Rondon, who fought back from his first half mess-ups.
His hat-trick tore the heart out of the Swans’ bid to get out of Premier League trouble, although they did get a late goal through Wayne Routledge.
Swansea’s away record – one point out of their last six games going into this – needs to improve if they are to get out of trouble, but Albion have been goalcrazy at home.
They piled in seven in beating Burnley and Watford in their last two games at The Hawthorns.
But, turning the statistics upside down, it was Swansea who were playing better and boss Bob Bradley (below) must have been content at half time, even if the Swans didn’t have the killer instinct.
A Gylfi Sigurdsson freekick, easily held by keeper Ben Foster, was the best Swansea had to offer and West Brom got away with it.
The best West Brom had to offer was a 36th-minute chance, created by Nacer Chadli, to put Rondon in front of Lukasz Fab Fabianski, but he hit th the Swansea k keeper.
Rondon dallied and w wasted another p promising opp opportunity just bf before half time and Albion needed to do much better to live up to their recent billing as a potential top-six team.
That applied in particular to Rondon, but five minutes into the second half he came good.
Matt Phillips offered a well-crossed free-kick and Rondon got between two defenders to dive and connect powerfully with his head from six yards to put Albion in front.
Swansea had been warned that Rondon had found his form, but they didn’t listen and he finished them off with two more goals in two minutes.
He headed in Chris Brunt’s cross at the far post, again getting between two defenders, in the 61st minute.
And, with Swansea rocking, he got his third from another Brunt ball, again heading in.
Swansea gave themselves some hope with a 78th-minute scrambled Wayne Routledge goal, but they’d found their finishing edge very late in the match.
MATCH STATS