Express & Star

Slaven Bilic frustrated by West Brom defending following Charlton draw

An angry Slaven Bilic expressed his frustration at Albion’s failure to defend set-pieces after they were held to a 2-2 draw at Charlton.

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Slaven Bilic head coach / manager of West Bromwich Albion (AMA)

The Baggies led twice at The Valley with goals from Kenneth Zohore and Hal Robson-Kanu sandwiched between a Josh Davison strike.

But a fiery and entertaining clash in the Capital ended all-square when the hosts equalised with 15 minutes to play through Tom Lockyer.

Charlton’s first goal arrived from a corner with the second coming from a free-kick delivered to the back post.

And Bilic said his side can’t expect to win matches if they concede such sloppy goals.

“If you concede those two goals, then it’ll be unlikely that you leave the field unpunished,” the head coach said.

“Simple as that. For us to score, we had to do something, we had to commit, we had to create, to come with the numbers and risk.

“To concede just from set plays, you can’t allow it. It can’t happen and we’ve conceded quite a few in the last few games.

“It can’t happen, simple as that.

“You can lose games, in the Championship, you can lose. You can lose the game 3-0, but you can’t lose like this. We were winning 1-0 and 2-1 you cannot lose those privileges.”

On how Charlton scored their goals, Bilic continued: “We are working on set pieces, everyone is working on set-pieces but this can’t happen.

“First one, we made a mistake and gave them a corner. They won two headers, first one, second one.

“It’s not okay but it can happen once, okay.

“Second one - we were not ready. I showed it to the guys. The ball has already been played, and we are still ‘where are you, where am I?’ That happens, yeah, that happens in Champions League finals, but do those things and you don’t win it.”

Albion and Charlton also played out a 2-2 draw at The Hawthorns earlier in the season.

On that day, Lee Bowyer’s side netted a stoppage time penalty after Semi Ajayi was incorrectly judged to have committed a foul.

But Bilic said he was more frustrated with his team’s defending at The Valley than the decision which robbed his team of three points against the Addicks earlier in the campaign.

“That’s why I am double gutted,” he added.

“We’d have been gutted if they had scored a couple of screamers, but not this.

“I would’ve been more happy if it had been like last time when they were given that penalty in the 95th minute, but not like this.

“The second one is like...what? The second one is an awful one, to be fair.”