Slaven Bilic: Great win, but still room for West Brom improvement
Slaven Bilic felt there were plenty of positives but admitted Albion cannot ignore the negatives after they ran out 4-2 winners against Cardiff.
The Baggies were sensational for 70 minutes at The Hawthorns with goals from Matheus Pereira, Grady Diangana and Charlie Austin putting them into a 3-0 lead.
But their game management wavered after Austin's strike with a brace from Danny Ward giving Cardiff hope of an unlikely fightback.
Thankfully, though, Albion rallied with Romaine Sawyers scoring in stoppage time to ease the tension in B71.
"I’m pleased - it was a great win," Bilic said.
"It was a great performance for the first 70 minutes.
"In every aspect of the game, we were playing some breathtaking football.
"Right from the start, we were playing well, passing it from the centre-backs.
"On the second balls, what they were good at, we scored the second goal from Jake’s (Livermore) challenge.
"Good ball and good counter-attack it was great. Now you’re waiting for the ‘but’!"
On Albion surrendering two-goals, Bilic said: "I’d like to talk positives, but we’re going to talk about the negative straightaway.
"I said to the guys, anything can happen in football. We saw it in Istanbul - Liverpool, Milan.
"Milan, the Italians, they’re genius in managing the game and still it happened to them.
"Once you lose momentum, it’s hard. Football’s a funny game.
"I told the guys, we need a fourth goal. Being 3-0 up with 20 minutes to go, something can go wrong.
"We knew it - it’s this kind of manager, this kind of league, never giving up and whatever.
"They didn’t care that they were going to concede a fourth because they knew they were in the game, they needed that momentum.
"If they’d done something differently, or done something great, then fair enough.
"But their first goal was our mistake, our ball. The second goal - I’m not talking about the corner, you can concede goals from corners - but how it came to the corner...we have to manage the game better.
"At 3-0, they never gave up. It’s up to you. Why not finish it 3-0 or 4-0? It was a good opportunity to have a clean sheet."
Overall, Bilic was happy with his team's display.
"We’re playing good football, we’re confident, we’re passing the ball, we’re running, we’re physically good, we have our patterns," he added.
