View: One West Brom player was head and shoulders above the rest v Wigan
It is hard to point out any positives in a 1-0 defeat at home against a team that was in the relegation zone.
West Brom suffered exactly that on Saturday as Sam Morsy’s goal helped Wigan pick up a surprise three points at The Hawthorns and move themselves out of the Championship’s drop zone.
As for Albion, they remain top but have seen their lead over Leeds reduced to just a single point while third-placed Fulham are now six points away.
It was a bad day at the office for Slaven Bilic but at least Semi Ajayi managed to stand out with a solid display in the heart of the Baggies defence.
Ajayi, 26, has been an ever-present for West Brom since he was signed in the summer from Rotherham, appearing 36 times across all competitions and chipping in with an impressive five goals.
The London-born Nigeria international has certainly been an improvement on Craig Dawson, who he replaced in the West Brom defence and his display against Wigan proved that.
It’s never great when a manager is forced into changing his centre-back pairing in the game but that is what Bilic was forced to do when Ahmed Hegazi was replaced by Kyle Bartley before half-time due to an injury.
But that barely fazed Ajayi, who offered a lot of resistance to a Wigan side that was by no means scared of league-leading West Brom.
According to stats by WyScout, Ajayi won all five of the defensive duels he was in.
He also won five out of the eight aerial duels he encountered and three of the five loose ball duels.
In percentages, all three of those were up on Ajayi’s season average, showing that he not only had more work to do against Wigan than usual, but the quality of that work was high.
With the ball at his feet, Ajayi completed 85 per cent of his passes – his season average is 76.1 per cent – and only Filip Krovinovic had a higher success rate out of the Albion players who started.
Ajayi’s been the complete defender for West Brom this season.
He is tall, good in the air, strong in the tackle, has pace and is a decent passer.
We saw pretty much all of that on show against Wigan but it is just a massive shame that the attacking players didn’t do Ajayi’s display justice by providing the good at the other end of the pitch.
He deserved to be on the winning side.
In other West Brom news, Kevin Phillips has discussed what West Brom’s summer plans are likely to be.