With disappointment for West Bromwich Albion ahead of the top of the table clash with Norwich City in Saturday’s Championship action following the recall by Leicester City of in form Harvey Barnes, plenty of fans wondered how we’d cope without his creative spark.
With head coach Darren Moore forced to rejig slightly, although the game was pretty fairly balanced on a statistics front, we took the early advantage 12 minutes in as Dwight Gayle opened the scoring to give us a 1-0 lead.
It ends level.#WBANOR pic.twitter.com/kdIZRtBxN9
— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) January 12, 2019
We sadly couldn’t find a second on the day at The Hawthorns though, and Jordan Rhodes levelled things up for them inside of the final ten minutes of the game, but I think plenty will have been happy to take the point to keep us ticking over given the late changes that would’ve occurred owing to Barnes heading out.
Speaking to the BBC at the fulltime whistle, Moore explained.
“I’m really pleased for the team and with the performance. We went for the three points, everybody could see that. But, really I’m looking at the performance as a whole, which was fantastic. I thought we limited Norwich brilliantly with our work off the ball and when we had possession, we used it well at times and created chances. A second goal was just eluding us, but when we were 1-0 up, I felt that if we kept doing the right things at the right time, we’d be OK. They gambled and it paid off for them today.”