Sam Allardyce: Fitness key to West Brom's late revival
Sam Allardyce says the fitness levels of Albion’s players has improved by up to 25 per cent in their last 10 games.
But while the boss believes that is one of the key factors behind their impressive performances, he is still angry they haven’t picked up more points.
The Baggies have shown real intensity in their last two outings – with those performances leading to back-to-back victories over Chelsea and Southampton.
Allardyce, though, has repeatedly said his side has been been performing well for 10 games now – with Albion unfortunate not to beat the likes of Manchester United, Burnley and Newcastle in recent weeks.
And he believes it’s only the results against Chelsea and Southampton that are making people stand up and take notice of how fit the team now is.
“The team has been 20-25 per cent up for the last 10 games,” Allardyce said when asked about Albion’s fitness levels.
“That has led to us creating more chances. But what it hasn’t done – that physical capability – is turn those chances into goals.
“That is why the players haven’t had as much praise as they possibly deserve for their performances because they have slipped up in front of goal too much.
“They would have been sitting well into the 30-point mark now if they had been more clinical. But we’re not, we are sat on a miserable 24.
“Now we can’t do anything about that.
“That vast majority of why we have slipped up is our fault.
“But we are still fighting and when you put two performances together like we have, I hope it continues to give the players hope and belief that they can carry on winning.
“It still might not be enough because we have to rely on other teams losing.
“But all we can do is keeping winning.”
Albion’s win over Southampton was achieved after Allardyce opted to deploy them in a 4-2-3-1 formation.
The Baggies switched to a 3-5-2 system at Chelsea with that shape giving them an excellent platform in the game for the opening half-hour.
After Thiago Silva was sent off, they switched to 4-2-3-1.
But speaking ahead of the visit of Southampton, Allardyce revealed he would make a late call on what formation to use have been pleased with both at Stamford Bridge.
“After watching the Chelsea game back I decided to go with the 4-2-3-1,” he said.
“Watching Matheus (Pereira) in the hole, Callum Robinson maybe couldn’t have played if we had started in a back three.
“We might have had to put him on the bench and I think when you score two goals and played like he did at Chelsea – we had to go with what we finished with.
“It worked very well for us against Southampton and got us a very credible three-nil win and a very important three goals.
“And also a very important clean sheet for Sam (Johnstone) with the excellent penalty save at the end.”
Meanwhile, Robinson has vowed Albion will do everything they can to survive this season even though the odds are against them.
“We know it’s going to be tough but we’ll give it a right go,” he said.
“Hopefully we can keep delivering these performances because it’s what we need to try and get out the relegation zone.
“We’ve got to stay positive. Anything can happen in football.
“Hopefully the results go our way and it’s a positive end to the season for us.”