West Brom analysis: No dramatic ending as Albion clash follows script

Unfortunately for Albion, it wasn’t the prelude to the dramatic drumroll of an EastEnders-style climax which would have seen them winning this game, which they perhaps deserved to do as a result of their improved second half performance.

Instead, it was the same old script against the Londoners, with the last four league meetings between the two in B71 now finishing in stalemate, the most recent two without troubling the scorers.

Same old script for Albion too, after a week of three fixtures all ending in draws, albeit without a huge amount of edge-of-the-seat soap-style drama with the exception of the opening four-goal flurry at Vicarage Road.

Same old Championship too. Same old ultra-competitive, physically demanding, frustrating and yet ultimately mesmerising division where so many of the teams are separated by little more than the width of a cigarette paper.

At full-time on Saturday the Baggies sat in 13th position in the table with 10 points from their first eight games. Millwall occupied tenth, with 11 points, and, of the previous two opponents with whom Albion had shared the spoils, Bristol City were eighth on 12 points and Watford 16th on nine.

So, three points between the quartet just as there had been so little between them over this trio of fixtures. Albeit there was only a lick of paint between Albion and victory against the Lions as Alex Mowatt fired a free-kick against the bar and Brandon Thomas-Asante’s header bounced back off the same piece of woodwork.

Those two chances came about thanks to a much improved second half from Albion, sparked in no small part by an initial momentum-burst from wing back Matt Phillips, who fired a delicious ball across the box shortly after the interval before then being denied by the reflexes of Bartosz Bialkowski and a block from Ryan Longman.

In truth, the second half didn’t need to do much to improve from the first which was flat both on and off the pitch, the atmosphere never really seeming to get going after what was an emotionally-charged and rousing minute’s applause in tribute to Ian Hamilton.

Albion keeper Alex Palmer was heavily involved in a couple of the game’s other defining moments in that first period, initially in showing decent reflexes to claw away a potentially goal-bound block to his own attempted clearance from Millwall’s Duncan Watmore with less than two minutes on the clock.

His was an even more significant contribution just before the half-hour mark, diving to his right to claw away Zian Flemming’s penalty after a Kyle Bartley handball.

Goals clearly change games, and had Millwall got their noses in front events could have taken a far different turn and the valiant defending which their manager Gary Rowett saluted in the second half could have been protecting three points as opposed to just one.

But the fact that Albion could justifiably argue that they themselves deserved to win the game, despite conceding that penalty, is testament to that second half impetus and perhaps a half-time reminder from Carlos Corberan about getting on the front foot.

The Baggies boss had made five changes to his starting line-up after the away double-header, including handing a first start to loanee Jeremy Sarmiento, first start of the season to Grady Diangana and first league start to Mowatt.

Bringing in Sarmiento and Diangana offered a different type of creative threat to that provided by the likes of Jed Wallace and John Swift, and to have those different options available for different tests will be vital for Corberan amid the fixture congestion and muck and nettles of life in the Championship.

Sarmiento showed some flashes of what he is about and, as he adds minutes, will be keen to add a more clinical end product to his undoubted ability on the ball, while Diangana grew into the game and was comfortably Albion’s biggest threat.

Mowatt also made a more than steady return, and with Conor Townsend and the in-the-wars Bartley making solid contributions to the clean sheet, there was justification in all the changes, even if making so many potentially contributed to the disjointed first half.

Corberan spoke after the game about needing more 90-minute performances from his team, or more to the point 100 minutes in the current climate, and to have that added creativity available will surely add to the quality via increased competition for places.

Thomas-Asante battled gamely up top, but needs more support, and the untimely and lengthy loss of Josh Maja is certainly a potentially pivotal one.

To turn the draws of the last week into wins is going to need a more predatory instinct, albeit it’s not so long ago that Swansea were despatched for three at the Hawthorns and Middlesbrough four.

Two wins from the first eight games of the season doesn’t look the best. But, at the same time, only two defeats suggests Albion are also hard to beat.

Such is the Championship, and, still with proximity to the top six, it wouldn’t take much to put together a series of results to start thinking about being higher up the table. Nor a few difficult ones to be nervously looking over the shoulder below.

It’s a season, in Albion’s case, which is probably yet to completely take shape. There will undoubtedly be many more plot twists to come.