West Brom deliver on Carlos Corberan demand in Norwich victory

The Baggies hit back from their wretched Riverside display with a deserved 1-0 home victory over the Canaries in front of a sell-out Boxing Day crowd.

Corberan’s men should have put more past the 10-man visitors but had to settle for one, with supporters left satisfied with an impressive performance – a marked step up from the north east horrorshow on Saturday.

Top scorer Brandon Thomas-Asante was the second-half match-winner with his eighth goal of the season, but it was captain Jed Wallace and the returning John Swift who stole the show with inspired displays to send encouragement through the home supporters.

“In the previous game we didn’t perform well in general,” Corberan said. “The result for me is fair in terms of things we saw in the game, when we were playing against 11 and when we were playing against 10.

“After you have a negative result, it’s important to show reaction. After a negative result there are two types of reaction – positive and negative. A negative reaction would see the desire of the players decrease, a positive one would see the commitment and desire increase. I saw a very positive reaction from the team.”

Corberan said of his side’s one-goal lead: “I have the massive feeling today. When you are playing in a game when you have one player more and you arrive in the last minutes, you need to increase the goal difference.

“When you arrive with two goals difference, the opponent will find it difficult to change the result, but when you arrive in the last minutes with only one goal difference, this is a dangerous score.”

Attacking midfielder Swift has struggled with hamstring fatigue since returning from a two-month calf lay-off but was recalled to the starting line-up for the visit of the Canaries.

He was central to most of Albion’s attacking joy and almost bagged a wonderful first-half effort but for the woodwork.

“Swift is an important player for us and when we don’t have him he’s someone we’re going to miss,” Corberan added. “Then you lose (Matt) Phillips and (Josh) Maja, it impacts our performance possibilities and our competitive possibilities. To have Swift back is a positive thing.

“At least when you start with him you are going to have two attacking players on the bench. In the last games we’ve had a full-back playing as a winger (Pipa) because we only had one attacking winger on the bench. Especially when we play at home, Swift helps the team.”

Albion remain fifth in the Championship but closed the gap to fourth-placed Leeds, who lost against Preston, to six points ahead of Friday night’s Black Country showdown with the Whites.