Kevin Phillips: West Brom need to take Cup form into the league

I was absolutely delighted for the lads, Alan Pardew (pictured above) and all the club’s supporters who haven’t had it easy over the past year.

First and foremost, I was over the moon to see them grab a win – because they haven’t had too many of them this season. But to score three goals in a game and to go to Anfield and get a result, it was a great team effort.

You look at the line-ups and Liverpool went very strong. Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino all started.

But West Brom were excellent on the night. And over the past few weeks, Jay Rodriguez has really started to find his feet.

He looked sharp, he looked full of energy and he got himself two very good goals.

It really was a fantastic result and give everyone in the squad a massive confidence boost.

When you look at the league table, Albion are sitting second bottom and two points behind the team above them.

They know they need to transfer Saturday’s performance into the rest of the season.

But the players know they can hit those heights now.

It would be great if West Brom could now go on and enjoy a Cup run. We got close when I was there – we got to the semi-final.

And we should have beaten Portsmouth, the eventual winners, on the day.

Anything is possible once you get on a roll.

But I do think the most important thing for the club is to stay in the Premier League.

When I was at Birmingham, we won the League Cup but we went on to get relegated.

To be fair, the supporters were divided afterwards. There were a lot who saw winning the cup as more important than avoiding the drop.

But I would have rather we had stayed up.

Of course, it’s nice to have that medal on my mantlepiece and to have been able to say I won a major competition, but the Premier League is the place everybody wants to play and, with the strength of the Championship now, it can be very hard to get back to the Premier League if you slip out.

You could spend four, five, six seasons stuck in the Championship. And that’s why Pardew’s ultimate aim is to keep the team up.

I saw comments from the manager after the game saying he is still keen to bring in one more striker.

Rodriguez is enjoying a rich vein of form, but I think he’s right to still want to strengthen his attacking options.

Competition for places is good for everybody. And you’d worry if Rodriguez got injured, who would step up and score the goals.

Troy Deeney (pictured inset) is the striker that has been heavily linked with a move to The Hawthorns. But it remains to be seen if he is the man to fire the Baggies to safety.

I’m not sure if he is worth the £20million or £25million that is being quoted.

In an ideal world, I’d like to see Albion sign someone with pace.

Deeney is more of a link-up player, a target man.

If Albion could get a player that possesses raw pace and is strong – I think that would really help them cause problems.

But of course, that is a lot easier said than done. Players like that are hard to find.

And even if you do find one, it’s likely a whole host of other clubs will also be chasing his signature.

The other big talking point from Albion’s win over Liverpool was VAR – or video assistant referees to give them their full title.

In this column a few weeks ago I talked about how I am very much in favour of the new technology.

And that hasn’t changed despite some early teething problems.

Of course, like everyone watching the game, I was frustrated by the amount of time it took for decisions to be made.

But I think the bottom line is that VAR allowed the referee to get all the big calls right.

I’m really not a fan of the game being stopped for that long.

At times it was two or three minutes before a conclusion had been reached.

It was frustrating because when you are watching at home, within 30 seconds you have seen a replay and have made your mind up.

That conversation with the referee and the video assistant needs to be quicker.

But it is important to stress that these are just teething problems.

VAR is still very new. The people at the top of the game will be aware decisions have been taking too long.

And referees themselves will want to speed up the process because they will be aware of the frustration that builds within the crowd.

It is the fans who have paid to be at the game that have somewhat been left behind with the new technology.

They haven’t got the luxury of sitting in front of a screen so they’ve got no idea what is going on. That doesn’t seem right.

One solution is to show the incident that is being looked at on a big screen.

But the more I think about it, the less I think that is the way to go. I think it will bring extra pressure on referees and extra debate.

That’s why speed is the most important thing. If an incident is going to be looked at, it’s imperative a decision is made quickly. That is the only way VAR will go on to improve the game. And if it doesn’t get quicker over time, we may have to look at it again.