"We suffered" – Carlos Corberan focused on things to improve after first West Brom win
Boss Carlos Corberan reckons Albion have got plenty to work on despite a first victory of the season – in which they were made to "suffer" by Swansea.
The Baggies head coach was not satisfied despite seeing his side collect three Championship points at the second attempt, having had to fight hard to hold on to them and avoid a late Swans surge.
A game of set-pieces saw Albion lead through Semi Ajayi and a Carl Rushworth own goal, from a long throw-in and corner respectively, before John Swift's penalty made it 3-0 after the hour. The hosts, backed by more than 24,000 in The Hawthorns opener, looked home and hosed before Michael Duff's visitors hit back through two corners of their own, as Harry Darling and Nathan Wood netted quickfire efforts to make it a nervy final 10 – plus nine minutes of stoppages – in the Black Country.
Corberan, who named Matt Phillips as a makeshift striker because of Thomas-Asante's setback suffered at Stoke in midweek, refused to show much positivity after his side held on for the win, instead insisting they "suffered" far too much for his liking from Swansea's late onslaught.
"We have won the game suffering, without managing the game in the way we need to do," Corberan said. "The best thing was of course the result, but the worst thing was that we suffered more than we had to suffer during one part of the game.
"They changed their shape and accumulated players in the middle of the pitch. We changed our shape to 5-3-2. When they changed their shape, they didn't create chances – they started to create set piece actions. From the set pieces, we weren't dominant today and we conceded two goals and a lot of chances that put the result at risk.
"I was talking with my assistant before the first corner and I told him how it important it was to keep the clean sheet, because the team can feel the pressure to keep the result – and this happened. The fact that we lost the first game, the fact we lost in the Carabao Cup, sometimes increases the pressure. Instead of facing these moments with confidence and motivation, we start to decrease our levels and we became a more fragile team.
"It's very important to correct. The result is a positive, but even then my focus is to improve my team. Today we were some moments, but we were not enough in other moments too."
Corberan preferred to focus on where his side struggled in the closing stages – and felt Albion were too loose in attacking stages from open-play generally.
"Sometimes when you are coaching in that moment, I can talk about with you more about the things we have to improve, than the things we did well," he added. "Immediately you forget about this.
"In positional attacks today we didn't use the advantages well enough that we created. We lost balls in clear, advantageous situations.
"In transitions, we didn't manage enough well to create more chances. Defensively, they didn't create any problems but from set-pieces, in the second half, we suffered more and we gave them possibilities to draw or win. They're the three aspects we need to improve."
