Daniel Feliciano

Sat 9 December 2023 18:10, UK

Josh Maja’s injury nightmare at West Brom continues after he was forced to come off against Sunderland due to a horror tackle.

The Baggies were lucky to be level after Jobe Bellingham saw a goal wrongly disallowed for offside, but Carlos Corberan will be absolutely furious that the Black Cats still have ten men on the pitch after Daniel Ballard’s tackle on the striker.

Ballard launched himself into the air and scissor tackled Maja from behind, putting all his weight onto Maja’s leg and didn’t make contact with the ball.

Somehow the referee deemed that to only be a yellow card and Maja was forced off injured, with young Tom Fellows coming on to replace him.

This was Maja’s first start and he was playing well, holding the ball up and looking threatening against his former side. But once again Corberan is now short in attack if the injury is as serious as it seemed it could be.

Too often this team has been let down by officials and while a lot of the injuries this season have just been bad luck, this was easily preventable and the referee should have punished the Sunderland player properly.

To add insult to injury, literally, Ballard went on to score the opening goal of the game in the 70th minute to earn his side all three points and condemn West Brom to a second consecutive defeat.

Instead we’re short of a key player and the likelihood is that we’ll now be forced to navigate an incredibly busy and difficult period of the season without him.

It’s a shocking tackle and Corberan would have every right to be absolutely raging at half-time and after the game, but knowing the EFL they’d just fine him for that and it wouldn’t help us.

The referee should be held accountable for it after going back over the footage, and this alongside the disallowed goal only strengthens the calls for VAR to be in the Championship.

In other West Brom news, pundit delivers “so lucky” verdict after what he saw live on air.