Three things learned from West Brom v Swansea City
West Brom fell to a 2-1 defeat against Swansea City in the Championship on a wet night on Wednesday.
The Baggies’ goal came in the first minute and was a beautifully crafted move that ended with Karlan Grant slamming home his sixth goal of the season.
The Baggies though couldn’t hold on to record an important win and threw it all away in the second half.
Here are three things we learned from the game.
Karlan Grant is now invaluable.
By his own admission, Grant’s first season at the Hawthorns was a failure; he only scored one goal and found himself in and out of the team.
However, he has made a brilliant start to this season and has scored six goals to become the Baggies’ top goalscorer this season.
Almost all of his goals have been important and helped his side win the match and tonight was no different as he helped his side come away with a point.
He really is becoming an undroppable player in Valerien Ismael’s side.
Ismael’s tactics spot on, then not.
There have been a few games this season in which the Baggies have failed to break teams down who have sat in.
However, Swansea like to be expansive and play out from the back, and they fell into the Baggies’ trap in the fist half.
West Brom’s goal came from winning the ball high up the field and punishing the Swans.
The Albion also forced Swansea to play a lot of long balls for fear of being caught out, which again played perfectly into their hands.
However, in the second half it was very different and the Swans managed to get themselves in on goal time and time again.
Ismael was too slow to react and the game slipped away.
Ismael could have a huge problem.
Alex Mowatt missed the game through injury, and Jake Livermore picked up his fifth yellow card of the season.
This means that Ismael could be without his first-choice midfield pairing for the first time this season.
Jayson Molumby started his first game for the Baggies and wasn’t that good, but it appears as if he will have to play at the weekend.
Hopefully, Mowatt is fit because if not, the Baggies have a serious problem.
In other West Brom news, one moment in the Swansea game stunned a Sky Sports pundit.