Express & Star

Ally Robertson: Carlos Corberan's West Brom impact reminds me of Johnny Giles’ arrival

It’s like watching a different side under Carlos Corberan – now you can’t wait to get to Albion matches!

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Carlos Corberan at the West Bromwich Albion Training Ground on November 21, 2022 in Walsall, England. (Photo by Adam Fradgley/West Bromwich Albion FC via Getty Images).

Imagine where we would be if we hadn’t won those five games?

But it is still all so close and shows what can change. If there can be another run – three wins and a draw – and we’ll be right among the Championship play-off chase.

Carlos is the first manager in a while to come out and say how he feels. That is refreshing, hopefully the players will continue to react to that.

You’ve got to give him credit for coming in and changing the attitude of the team.

What’s been great – and I’ve said it all along – clean sheets are the most important thing.

The five wins there was one goal against us, a penalty which was the same at Coventry. We’ve not been giving soft goals away where we had been.

When you look at how we’re playing now, we look like we know what we’re doing. Jed Wallace and John Swift are back to how they were when they joined us.

It’s great, good to be part of it. I was hoping to see a couple more clean sheets at Coventry and Bristol, maybe four points, but the turnaround has been brilliant.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that now when we lose the ball, we want it back.

Before we were just sitting back and not really doing anything, allowing teams to play how they wanted to play.

Now we want that ball back and it’s so good to see. Steve Bruce is probably looking at it thinking ‘why wasn’t it like this for me?’

With us under Don Howe, we just did not play at all. Johnny Giles came in, told us ‘this is how we’re going to play’.

All of a sudden we changed and went one way and it was brilliant.

I always remember when Gilesy came in and we went on to win promotion.

We played Fulham away, got beat and we could not believe how we got beat, we’d played so well. We drew the next home, then all of a sudden we were winning games, drawing one, then a winning run again.

At the game at Fulham you could see the change and how the players were reacting, it was incredible.

That is what is happening now, exactly the same thing. The players will feel that.

I just hope that if we can go to Ashton Gate on Boxing Day and not lose, then win our two home games either side of the new year, the place will be flying again.

Bristol City will be a difficult game, no doubt, but then we welcome Preston and Reading to The Hawthorns, hopefully we get back on a run, it keeps everything going.

It’s the first time in however long you can hear the fans actually wanting to go to the game.

We’ve no doubt been boosted by the return to fitness of some key players. How good does Tom Rogic look? I wish we could’ve got him five years ago when he was younger!

He’s done brilliantly since getting up to speed. Everyone who I’ve spoken to said how lucky we are to have him and what he star he was up in Scotland with Celtic.

Daryl Dike is back too, I was watching the Sunderland game where he came back from the bench and scored that header – I thought ‘bloody hell it’s Astle! Come on!’

Defensively, too, it looks like Semi Ajayi and Kyle Bartley are back due back and available. Once we get that backline settled they will know what each other is doing.

Bartley was flying after the gaffer said the defender was the best defender we’ve got!

That’s a manager getting the best from players, that’s what Gilesy did with us.