Lewis Cox analysis: West Brom players falter to set up nervy final day

Carlos Corberan admitted a week or so ago he was content with final-day drama, but privately I’m sure he would have hoped Albion’s play-off spot was wrapped up by now.

On to The Hawthorns, then, Albion’s Shrine, for a make-or-break game 46 of the season, to secure something that has felt like it belonged to the Baggies all season.

It couldn’t go wrong from here, could it?

Saturday at Hillsborough was as bad as Albion have served up in 18 months under Corberan.

It was some occasion, the loudest atmosphere Albion have played in front of all season, with almost everything on the line.

Yet only one side handled the setting – and it wasn’t the visitors from the Black Country.

The Baggies didn’t show up. There wasn’t too much in a fairly tight first half but it was evident enough that Sheffield Wednesday, with Championship survival on the line, looked more up for this. They sensed it was their day and made it so.

Talk about timing. Three defeats in a row for the first time in the Spanish head coach’s year-and-a-half at the helm.

It is still, mercifully, in Albion’s hands for the visit of Preston as the curtain falls on the regular season next week. But the Baggies can ill-afford to concede or fall behind. Hull are right there and ready to pounce and gatecrash the party at the very final hurdle.

What has led to the most untimely of stumbles? Tiredness, physically and mentally? The pressure of the finish line? It is hard to tell. I think, certainly, the latter has played a part.

It is important to maintain some balance of context and not be knee-jerk. Albion put in one of their best displays of the season at Leicester seven days earlier – and still lost – and they looked sharp in the game prior to that against Sunderland until a red card.

But their form has been patchy for a little while, in truth. The record since March’s international break now reads one win, against relegated Rotherham, in seven games.

Remember that unbeaten run of 10 games prior to Sunderland? It was five wins and five draws. Some of those draws especially were, if not underwhelming, then owed to spells in the game where the Baggies had to recover.

Corberan’s men did and still do deserve credit for that run. I recall writing about the squad developing a sturdy backbone and ability to find a way to not be beaten, having shelled the soft underbelly.

Those traits were certainly missing at Hillsborough as Wednesday, under impressive boss Danny Rohl, who only turned 35 on Sunday, stamped their authority on the clash and made the most of their set-pieces and counter-attacks.

Albion’s head coach felt the game was lost in the first 20 or 25 minutes of the second half, when Albion dropped from 1-0 down to 3-0 down. It put to bed any idea of a second-half response and when the quadruple substitutions arrived on 55 minutes the game was gone.

Baggies supporters, by and large, were enraged by the level of their side’s performance and some of that is perfectly understandable. The three goals all came from “second phases” – football coach speak for rebounds from initial shots or deliveries into the box.

Alex Palmer saved the first and third, the latter unconvincingly, and on both occasions it was Owls players on their toes to the second ball.

Albion’s Okay Yokuslu, for goals one and two, was caught on his heels and too slow to react and clear. He was not alone in having a bad afternoon.

It is an extreme suggestion to say Wednesday wanted Saturday more, but on the occasion it felt like the hosts had more on the line. The win took them a big step towards securing their second-tier status.

The visitors, by contrast, looked lethargic and lost when the second and third goals went in. They looked beaten with little inspiration or belief. Corberan will have to, and did, shoulder responsibility for the defeat. There were questions for a surprise start for Matt Phillips after injury – he understandably didn’t look match-fit – while one of the players of the season, Alex Mowatt, was benched.

The head coach has guided Albion to an excellent season. The consistency shown to put themselves in this position for almost the entirety of the campaign has to be saluted.

The Baggies cannot let months and months of hard work unravel now. It would be catastrophic if anything went wrong at the final hurdle. But it isn’t unlike Albion to put their fans through the wringer.

An almost-unbroken run of fifth-place since October – and now this, sixth. With one game to go and Hull trailing by two points. How are your nerves, Albion?