Fourth place wasn’t good enough for former head coach Darren Moore and unfortunately, it seems caretaker gaffer Jimmy Shan could soon become the latest target for ire with West Bromwich Albion’s lofty expectations at Board level and in some sections of the fanbase, as it all quickly went wrong against Bristol City in our latest Championship clash earlier this evening.
We found ourselves a goal behind at Ashton Gate inside of the opening two minutes. That was 2-0, 16 minutes in and 3-0, 19 minutes in.
It was a far better performance second half and goals from Dwight Gayle and Jay Rodriguez restored some hope of taking something from the game as the players finally dug in.
3-2 was how it finished and West Brom lose more ground on the automatic spots, and our more comfortable buffer in the ‘not good enough’ Play-Off spaces now looks a little dicey.
Credit for the second half improvement, but if the players are now ‘happy’ the first half tells a different story.
Speaking to the BBC following the final whistle, Shan must have felt hung out to dry in the opening 45, as it’s certainly not his fault.
“We gave ourselves far too much work to do. After 19 minutes, you find yourselves 3-0 down and at the side of the pitch you’re thinking ‘what else can go wrong?’ We said at half-time that we needed a reaction and this group of players has an unbelievable ability to take on board information and execute to the best of their ability. They did that really well in the second half. Looking at the stats, we had one less shot than them and one less shot on target, so it’s fine margins – not to dismiss the nature of how we conceded the three goals. That wasn’t acceptable and, against any team at any level, you give yourselves a massive task.”