West Brom Fan View: Back to basics approach yields vital first win for Alan Pardew

It’s taken 9 Premier League games and a total of 46 days but finally, Alan Pardew has his first PL win as West Bromwich Albion Head Coach. If the Baggies were to give themselves a chance at PL survival, it was absolutely vital that they came away with three points, against a Brighton & Hove Albion side with a woeful away record.

Fortunately for the West Brom players, fans and Head Coach, the Baggies would eventually win the game 2-0, thanks to goals from Jonny Evans and Craig Dawson. The scoreline was achieved by going to a back to basics approach, with both goals coming from corner kicks. Under former boss Tony Pulis, West Brom were well known for their danger at set-pieces, and would regularly score from such situations, with Evans, Dawson and Gareth McAuley often on the scoresheet.

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However in recent times, the team has seemed to have lost it’s danger from these situations, largely because under Pulis, we weren’t getting far up enough the pitch to actually win any free-kicks or corners!

The first goal from Evans, after just three minutes, was brilliantly taken. The corner was flicked on by Jay Rodriguez and the West Brom captain had to adjust himself in mid-air at the back-post to head the ball past Matthew Ryan. The second goal was similarly impressive, with Dawson getting a run on the Brighton defender, timing it to perfection and then heading the ball down into the ground and into the top corner.

Whilst the goals were great, I think the team’s performance was absolutely fantastic, and it was probably the first time for a while that we’ve seen every single player putting in a good performance.

Even Krychowiak was impressive! I think the team was helped by not starting the likes of Jake Livermore and James McClean, who haven’t impressed all season. Finally, this win could be the start of the Pardew revival.

Boing Boing!