West Brom's Rayo Vallecano key takeaways: Old school, Heggem hole and a need for a lot more in one department
Ryan Mason's Baggies faced their toughest pre-season to date in their final outing before the start of the Championship campaign.
After a few under par displays in pre-season, Albion welcomed the La Liga side Rayo Vallecano to The Hawthorns.
And after initially being in the back foot early on, the Baggies impressed in spells of the game with the season opener against Blackburn just seven days away.
All five goals in the clash came in the final quarter of the game and Jonny Drury looks at some key points to come from the victory:
Change of system - old school
Mason has adopted the popular 4-2-3-1 this pre-season so far, and that has looked likely to be what he plays going forward.
But we saw a difference against Vallecano and you have to say for long periods it worked really well.
Karlan Grant started up front with Aune Heggebo in a front two - and it looked like Albion were comfortable in that system.
Of course it is fluid and can be called other things in different parts of the game, but on the face it was an old school 4-4-2.
Maybe that is the way Mason sees Albion playing.. A solid base in the middle, and a striker, or certainly a forward, closer to the main striker.
