Analysis: Free-scoring West Brom show a sensitive side

No side has scored more in the top five leagues, and that includes the National League where each team has played three more games.

Only Pep Guardiola’s billion-pound Manchester City project can rival Albion’s goals-to-game ratio which currently stands at more than 2.5.

At this rate, the Baggies are going to score more than 120 goals in the Championship this season.

To put that into perspective, Wolves scored 82 goals en route to lifting the title last term, and when Albion finished first under the free-scoring Tony Mowbray they netted 88 times.

Reading scored 99 goals when they finished with a record-breaking haul of 106 points in 2005/06.

The question is, how long can Darren Moore’s team keep up this absurdity?

Perhaps they’ll be figured out, perhaps Dwight Gayle will get RSI in his wrist and tire of his phone-call celebration.

Perhaps Harvey Barnes will tire of cutting through opposition defences at will, or simply be recalled by Leicester. Perhaps someone key will get injured.

But at the moment, this team has the extraordinary potential of having quite an extraordinary season.

They were sluggish in the first half and went into half-time deservedly behind, but that’s the point isn’t it?

This wasn’t a 4-1 game and yet that’s the way it finished. Albion seem to have the capability of doing this, of blitzing teams when they’re on top, scoring three goals instead of one during a spell of pressure.

They did it against QPR, Bristol City, Norwich, and on Saturday they did it against Reading too.

And the scary thing is they appear to have added another weapon to their arsenal. Kyle Bartley’s towering headers from corners led to two of these four goals.

Jay Rodriguez had netted the first header of the season seven days before at Preston, but this was the first from a set-piece and the first from one of the back three.

We’re only 12 games into the season, of course, and there are plenty of caveats to all this.

Albion have only played three of the current top eight, and from those three games they have only picked up two points.

They may be able to blow away the poorer teams, but they still need to prove it against their competition for the top two. Who knows, that could be the difference.

What’s more, the longer the season goes on, the more telegraphed your system becomes. Darren Moore may have to tweak, hone, or even completely change further down the line.

There is also the issue with the defence, or rather the approach. This team, playing this way, does not keep clean sheets.

But it seems churlish to moan about the space Leandro Bacuna was given six minutes into the game when that goal had become a mere footnote by the final whistle.

Moore has taken Mowbray’s philosophy and multiplied it ten-fold.

This was more than just a game of two halves though, and there were aspects of it that should give Albion’s head coach some food for thought.

Kyle Edwards proved in his 30-minute cameo at the end that he can be trusted at right wing-back when Matt Phillips is injured.

It’s hard to imagine Tyrone Mears making that 60-yard dash and tackle in injury time, even if the 35-year-old was somewhat a victim of circumstance.

Picking him for his third game in eight days at wing-back was slightly unfair, as were the cheers the greeted his substitution. He may not be Phillips, but he doesn’t deserve that.

Hopefully that Edwards performance will persuade Moore to trust his youngsters more this season, particularly off the bench, where they can make an impact.

But that is nitpicking over a head coach who is working wonders in his first stab at the job.

He has lost just three of his 18 league games in charge across two divisions and is currently on a seven-match unbeaten run in the Championship.

He has completely changed the philosophy of the football to one that is suited to the demands of this league.

Arguably more important than all that is the fact that just before the game, he spent 15 minutes chatting with the family of Thomas Jones, the 18-year-old Albion fan recently found in the River Severn.

When ‘Jonah’s’ yellow and green shirt was handed to the players to sign, they decided among themselves to raise it in tribute if they scored.

When Gayle did that, with the scores still level at 1-1, it said more about the current state of Albion’s dressing room than any sweeping move up the pitch.

Here was a loanee, born in London, who plays for a Premier League club in the North East, a dozen games into his Hawthorns tenure, paying tribute to a Midlands football fan.

Some things are more important than football, and you get the impression that Moore and his players are well aware of that.

They’re also keenly aware of the role they can play in their local community. Of how much a gesture like that means to a family in mourning, and how much an exciting win can lift a supporter for the week ahead.

Let’s be honest, the way this group is scoring goals at the moment, there was no danger that shirt wasn’t going to get raised, there was no danger Thomas wouldn’t be remembered again after the tribute before the match.

The deadliest team in England probably won’t go on to score 120 goals this season, because this pace has to let up at some stage.

But even if they did, few will be as poignant as that one.