West Bromwich Albion go continental

After the run of games we’d been on recently, in which West Brom had come up against the likes of Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, a home game with a struggling Hull City side looked like a good opportunity to get some more points on the board.

Coming off the back of a fantastic performance against Southampton, in which we took all three points away from St Mary’s , I think every West Brom fan expected a relatively straightforward win at the Hawthorns.

However, the opening 45 minutes would be quite a shock. The away side were dominant in every department, with Robert Snodgrass running the show in midfield, the Baggies looked overwhelmed.

It didn’t take long for Snodgrass to open the scoring, guiding a first-time volley into the corner of Ben Foster’s net, further evidence as to why he should be on our Head Coach’s wish list this month.

Then came an injury to Jonny Evans, in what looked a massive blow for the home side, but then something amazing happened.

Tony Pulis did the most un-Pulis type change I’ve ever seen. Instead of sending sub Nyom to right-back and moving Dawson into centre-back, he decided to go with a very continental 3-5-2 system, moving Brunt and Phillips to wing-backs and pushing Chadli just behind Rondon.

This unexpected change worked wonders, Albion came back into the game and it was Hull’s turn to look in disarray.

It didn’t take long for West Brom to turn the game around, Chris Brunt to levelled the game with a brilliant header from a corner kick, before Gareth McAuley scored his fifth goal of the season, again from a corner kick.

James Morrison sealed the win with a volley late in the second-half, with Hull simply unable cope with the radical system change, they barely looked a threat in the second 45.

I have to be honest, I didn’t think Pulis had that formation in his locker, but it proved to be a stroke of genius.

It will be interesting to see if he ever uses this system again, or if it was just a necessary change to counteract the specific threat from Hull City. Whatever the reason, we looked dangerous, Rondon had far more support in and around him and we could have scored more.

8th in the Premier League, scoring bucket loads of goals and using continental systems, who would have thought that of West Bromwich Albion at the end of last season?

Long may it continue!

Boing Boing!