Wigan 1 West Brom 2

Wigan will feel aggrieved to have lost the match, after dominating possession and pressing West Brom for long periods of the game. The 2-1 scoreline will aid West Brom greatly in their surprise push for the European places and Steve Clark will be especially glad to have recorded his first away win as manager.

West Brom came with a plan, executed it perfectly and snatched all three points. Especially commendable is the defence, which managed to concede just a single goal despite massive pressure from Wigan. Even the single goal the Kone scored came from a deflected cross, which the defence could not do much about. The game plan for West Brom's defending was to focus on the middle and they allowed the wingbacks of Wigan to be free for much of the game. This happened too many times during the game for it to be purely a coincidence. I suspect that Steve Clark had noticed that Wigan's wingbacks are not exactly a threat on the flanks as they do not like to take their men on and get into the box. Neither do send in crosses and even if they do, the cross is usually weak and easily cleared. Instead, they are used as a passing outlet and will pass on the ball to a midfielder who is usually stationed around 15m vertically away from the edge of the penalty box.

shape and movement of West Brom's defence

All these were shown in this match, particularly with Boyce who is not very attacking by nature. West Brom stuck to this plan and it served them well, not least because their back four kept their shape and no one made any rash tackles that would have put the team in a spot. The only way their shape looked like being breached was when Wigan lined up a long shot, which Ben Watson did twice to good effect.

The tactics for their offence looks to be similarly well planned and Shane Long in particular was my man of the match for executing it so well. The only reason why Clark took him off instead of Lukaku is that he had no miles left in his tank after practically running for the whole match. In the 9th minute, with Wigan doing the early pressing, Long even got back to the leftback position near his penalty box to win a header against Boyce. Back to the tactics though. West Brom attacks generally came though passing the ball down the channels for their strikers to run to and either draw a foul or earn a corner. This was only possible with the hard running and speed of Long and Lukaku, with the former being able to better use his body to shield the ball to build up the attack.

typical West Brom attack

The differing quality of the two strikers also showed in other aspects. Long was the more willing of the two to defend and Lukaku was generally poor with his crossing, though one of his poor crosses resulted in Brunt picking up the ball and delivering a pinpoint cross that led to James Morrison heading the ball in fot the game's first goal. Long's passing was also better, with some of his build up play in the second half being particularly delightful though Lukaku did provide a wonderful flick for Billy Jones to run on to and provide the cross which Caldwell deflected in to make it 2-0. The striking substitutions did not fare so well though, with Rosenberg's first touch constantly letting him down and Odemwingie being quite anonymous in the game.

The only blemishes on West Brom's performance were actually quite serious ones. Wigan looked to press heavily whenever they lost the ball and this worked to great effect as the West Brom midfield often tried to dribble out of danger. The pressing Wigan players capitalised on this quite a few times in the game and got the ball in dangerous positions. Mulumbu was the main culprit and he got dispossessed regularly as well as misplaced his passes in vital positions. This led to their only goal but the defence managed to prevent Wigan from capitalising more on these mistakes. Clark probably realised this and the second half saw West Brom try to dribble out less and instead pass out long to the channels for the strikers.

A good performance by Wigan, but they lacked the attacking edge and should probably have got chief creator Maloney on the ball more. West Brom was unspectacular, just solid and disciplined and their manager should take most of the credit for the win.