West Brom journalist Joseph Masi appeared on a recent edition of The Express and Star’s ‘Baggies Broadcast’ podcast where he shared his thoughts on West Brom’s 0-0 draw with Birmingham City last Saturday.
The Baggies played their first Championship game since the seventh of March this past weekend when they took on the Blues at The Hawthorns. While this game finished goalless, the Baggies managed to advance their position up to the top of the league table following this past weekend’s round of fixtures, in which Leeds United lost their clash with Cardiff City on Sunday.
Prior to the Championship’s restart, the EFL announced that Championship clubs would be permitted to make five in-game substitutions and West Brom boss Slaven Bilic made full use of this ruling in Saturday’s game.
During his recent appearance on The Express and Star’s Baggies Broadcast podcast, Masi spent some time discussing two of the players who were brought on by the Baggies as substitutes in this past weekend’s game.
Masi said: “I think when we saw the introduction of [Grady] Diangana and [Kyle] Edwards, they kept their width a lot better than [Matt] Phillips and [Callum] Robinson did, and that did create more space for [Matheus] Pereira when they came on because they are just more natural, ‘chalk on your boots’ wingers.”
While the journalist shared some praise for the two substitutes, he did also go on to share some criticism for this pair as well, saying: “I did think both Edwards and Diangana looked rusty. [West Brom] improved because of their attributes and the tactics of it, rather than those two players, I’d say, because when they both came on, I think they both looked rusty, really.”
Do you think Diangana and Edwards looked rusty at the weekend?YES, I THOUGHT SO
NO, THEY WEREN'T
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TIF Thoughts…
Masi’s comment about these two players appearing to be “rusty” when they were introduced to Saturday’s game may be somewhat harsh.
Both players were introduced in the 60th minute of the game and yet, Edwards managed to complete more dribbles than any other West Brom player in the match, while Diangana hit the target with two of his shots, which is something that no other Baggies player managed to achieve in the full 90 minutes of Saturday’s game, according to WhoScored.
So with that in mind, it may be fair to say that these two players made a positive contribution for West Brom versus Birmingham City.