West Bromwich Albion 1 - Birmingham City 0

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Ratings submitted so far: 9

Brendan Clegg:

Going into the game I hoped we’d try and repeat what I thought was a very strong performance against Wolves, and I really hoped we’d see Fellows starting for Chalobah so I was delighted with the lineup and for the first time in a long time our bench looked pretty handy.

I thought we started really well, got at them and dominated. I don’t think we made enough of promising situations as we either delayed and delayed the cross or came backwards when I’d have preferred us to have gambled a bit, or we tried to take one touch too many - an example being Fellows (who was great) trying to control and turn on a dropping ball about 10 yards out when really he could’ve just smashed it goalwards on the turn.

I thought we had them on toast largely and we turned the screw, but our momentum dropped when Corberan switched Wallace and Fellows to opposite wings about half an hour in. Fellows still shone but Wallace wasn’t as effective on the left and blew a couple of great opportunities for us to break in numbers. We still created bits but made poor choices (BTA shooting and getting blocked twice in succession when he could’ve skipped in Fellows an example) and so when HT came it was frustrating that we hadn’t scored and had disrupted our own dominance a bit.

Second half saw Swift out left and Wallace through the middle and we again started strongly, creating pretty good opportunities but not taking them.

Controversial opinion here. I thought we were so on top that we didn’t need to tweak too much but Corberan went very early with his changes.

Swift and BTA made way for Marshall and Johnston and we lost our way a bit.

Swift I understood but I’d have given BTA another 10.

As the other subs came on we looked further disjointed and alien, with Weimann and Chalobah coming on and Wallace & Kipre departing. Okay dropped into the back 4 and we lost control of midfield and looked vulnerable to pace in behind.

Blues came at us, put us under pressure, hit the inside of the post, had dangerous free kicks and looked likely to win it.

On about 85 Fellows made way for Dike and it looked like a run out for him and a nil-nil for us but almost immediately after we won the ball high, worked it wide to a Furlong early and his great cross was poached home by Weimann.

I thought it was against the run of play at that point but we take it, and despite loads of injury time we squeezed the life out of it and saw it out without much drama.

It wasn’t until after the game I heard about the accusation by Bacuna - how troubling if true for this club of any.

Big win. Happy with our window business. Time to sort our away form.

• Palmer - 7 another clean sheet and I think he’d have stopped both Wolves goals. Delighted we’ve got through another window and he’s still here
• Furlong- 7 Pretty good, great for goal, a couple of overhit passes first half when we were in otherwise
• Bartley - 6 Yep, solid
• Kipre - 6 same but silly booking and lucky to stay on before subbed
• Townsend- 6 put the yards in. Targeted aerially but did well there.
• Mowatt - 7 lots of good work, looks to be loving it
• Yokuslu - 7 Some top moments again after being the best player on the pitch against Wolves. If he had pace we’d be talking some player.
• Wallace - 6 mixed bag but always a threat and lots of running
• Swift - 5 touch deserted him sometimes and wanted too long but had moments
• Fellows - 8 Direct, made thing happen, kept the ball so well. We’ve got a player here.
• BTA - 6 did lots well but poor judgment undid it all

• Marshall - 5 Definitely put a shift in.
• Johnson - 6 Busy and big hand in the goal
• Weimann - 6 great finish
• Chalobah - 5 too easily shrugged off at times

Dike got a few useful minutes.