A much changed West Bromwich Albion lineup welcomed Wigan Athletic to The Hawthorns for today’s FA Cup third round tie.
Head coach Darren Moore gave plenty of Championship regulars a break for this one, and there was certainly a more youthful feel to the starting eleven he selected as we took a break from second tier action and our promotion battle.
“On show today was some homegrown talented players developed from our Academy, and it’s wonderful to see.”
Darren praises our youngsters after today's @EmiratesFACup triumph… 💬
Watch the full interview at https://t.co/CZ5IBrM5e0 #WBA pic.twitter.com/Qtu50RHS6T
— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) January 5, 2019
Bakary Sako opened the scoring on the day as he gave us a 1-0 advantage in the 31st minute of the first half and the squad would’ve gone into the halftime break in good spirits with the performance. We were unable to build on that advantage in the second period, but in keeping the clean sheet we gave ourselves a deserved, but narrow 1-0 victory to book our place in the fourth round draw which takes place next Monday.
Speaking to the BBC following the fulltime whistle, Moore said of the tie.
“I’m very happy with the result and the performance. It was a 1-0 win but the way we dominated, we could have won by more. I’m delighted for Bakary to come in and score the winner but he could have got another one when he went through. We used the ball well and worked extremely hard off the ball. And I was pleased with the way the experienced players helped the youngsters through. I was pleased with the fans’ patience. They’ve now seen a little bit of the flavour of talent that we’ve got within the club.”