Slaven Bilic proud of West Brom performance
Slaven Bilic admitted he was proud of his team’s performance after Albion toppled both Storm Ciara and Millwall to make it back-to-back wins in the Championship.
In a clash that had a real chance of being called off with heavy rain and gale-force winds battering the country, goals from Filip Krovinovic and Dara O’Shea saw the Baggies secure a convincing and deserved win in the Capital.
In truth, the margin of victory should have been a lot greater with Matheus Pereira hitting the post for the Baggies while Hal Robson-Kanu turned the ball over the bar when just a yard from goal.
But while it took until the 85th minute for O’Shea to pop up and settle any nerves, Bilic will be delighted with his team’s overall performance that saw them extend their lead at the top of the Championship.
“At any stage, in the game, the most important thing is the result,” the head coach said.
“But the performance to be fair...it was a long time 1-0 and they can score any time - a free-kick, or a bit of class, or whatever.
“But when you play like this it makes me proud.
“Everybody who played, everyone on the bench, the whole squad, we were better than them in physicality.
“From there, we got those balls in the holes and of course then we were good at the things we know we are good at.
“We didn’t match them in physicality, we were better than them, this is what makes me proud. This has to be the standard.
“We have to continue like this. A lot of people were talking... ‘Millwall weather...’ - come on. The guys showed spirit, the character, the willingness, effort.
“The only thing we should’ve done was score more goals because you can always get punished.
“We scored the second one on time - if it had been 1-0, the last few minutes would’ve been nervy.
“It was game on, but we should’ve scored the second one ages ago, like in the first half, never mind the beginning of the second half when we had those attacks.”
Bilic continued: “Don’t forget, this is a very difficult ground to play at, against a team who have always been physical - I said to Gary (Rowett) - they’re now playing good football.
“We stopped them. We neutralised them, with work rate. That’s it. It was a top performance.”
