Blues 2-0 West Brom

 

Starting XI

Three changes. Juninho Bacuna, Hannibal Mejbri and Lukas Jutkiewicz are back. Reda Khadra, injured, Gary Gardner and George Friend, both benched, are out. Troy Deeney, George Hall and Harlee Dean return to the squad. Emmanuel Longelo, Jordan Graham and Alfie Chang drop out. 

Game

The tempo was set early on by Blues and Hannibal's quality from set-pieces almost paid off after three minutes when Auston Trusty headed over his corner at the back post. He was on the mark after ten minutes, catching out David Button, preparing for the cross, with a near post free kick to give Blues the lead.

This was a breathless half of football from Blues and the midfield were key. Tahith Chong fired a loose ball over the bar, Bacuna volleyed over, Chong forced Button into a stop, Hannibal fired wide from 25 yards then nearly caught out Button with a whipped free-kick that was held at the second attempt. The best West Brom could muster in response was Daryl Dike closing down backpasses to John Ruddy and Marc Albrighton seeing a shot from 20 yards deflected wide. 

Blues started the second half in the same vein as the first and got their rewards, another Hannibal delivery finding a Blues head, this time a corner nodded in by Kristian Bielik under little pressure. 

The Baggies made a triple change, switched up their shape and the front two linked only for Dike to fire wide. At the other end, Chong and Hannibal's 1-2 ended with a cross for Hogan that was headed wide. Ruddy denied Swift from distance on 63 minutes and that was that. There was one shot for the rest of the game, a header from 18 yards that went nowhere near the Blues goal. We sat in, ground it out and earned the win. 

Tactics

Blues started with a back four for the second time this season, shifting from 3-5-2 to a diamond against West Brom's base of 4-2-3-1. Bielik was at the base, Hannibal at the tip with Chong and Bacuna either side. Blues' plan to get in the faces of the visitors and it worked a treat, risk being met by reward on this occasion. 

In possession, West Brom tried to play. Darnell Furlong tucked inside from his right-back position and Okay Yokuslu dropped in to create a somewhat skewed 3-1-4-2 with the ball. Jayson Molumby stepped into midfield, Conor Townsend and Albrighton stretched the play, Grady Diangana and Jed Wallace moved towards the left-hand side. The plan was to shift the ball to the left, create the overload and switch play to the right where Albrighton was in space and could be joined by Furlong and Molumby. 

To counter that, Blues were aggressive out of possession. Scott Hogan and Jutkiewicz would step off. Hannibal would close Yokuslu then step onto Dara O'Shea with Bielik and either Chong or Bacuna joining him to create a 5 v 4 situation in central areas. It meant that there was space for either Jed Wallace or Molumby if the visitors broke the press but it was so well co-ordinated that almost never happened. West Brom's response was to instead hook the ball towards the channel in an attempt to turn Blues, but Kevin Long and Dion Sanderson were excellent at reading these and clearing their lines. 

With West Brom possession-heavy, Blues didn't have to build many attacks. When they did, Blues would move the ball to Long, who was almost always the deeper defender, who would either find a way to work the ball to Maxime Colin or, because WBA would press 4 v 4 once the first pass backwards was made, he or Ruddy would search for Jutkiewicz and let Blues play on the knockdowns, a job that suited Hannibal on the night. 

In the second half, Blues were a little less aggressive, letting O'Shea have more of the ball and waiting for his first pass. This became more apparent when Nathaniel Chalobah came on as part of a triple change with he and Yokuslu now showing for the back three. In response, Gardner replaced Jutkiewicz, Hogan played as a lone striker and Gardner dropped in alongside Bielik, denying passes into what was now a front two. 

Blues made further changes for the final ten minutes, Deeney and Dean replacing Hogan and Bacuna. Blues moved to 5-4-1 to see the game out, forcing the ball wide and stopping or clearing the cross. Dean moved into the middle of the back three, Long moved to LCB while Hall moved from CAM to RM. 

Players 

Man of the match was definitely Hannibal. For 70 or so minutes, he was everywhere. He set the tone for the press, he was onto loose balls, he didn't give away possession cheaply and his delivery was excellent. 

But everybody played their part. Bacuna was on his game in the first half and was a bundle of fun. Chong showed a willingness to drive at people. Bielik's confidence visibly grew as the game went on. Jutkiewicz and Hogan were selfless in their work. Long looks to be getting fitter and was solid. 

For West Brom, Wallace stood out for his distribution, even if he couldn't quite get into the game. Otherwise, they were pretty poor. Button was shaky and played a role in both Blues goals. And Pieters was okay but a knock early in the second half was followed by the needless concession of a corner then falling to get off the ground defending it. 

Anything else?

A few bits. Firstly, the protest. It was well done. Nothing silly. They marched. Made their voices heard. Got messages out live on tele. Good on them. 

A nice touch from West Brom, allowing Okay Yokuslu to lead out the side after the events in homeland. 

Trusty and Dike were being watched by USA Head Coach Anthony Hudson on the night. Fair to say Trusty made an impression. 

Ruddy was captain, rather than Jutkiewicz, who I believed to be vice captain. Not that either didn't lead by example on the night, but that interested me. 

Wrapping it up... 

This is the Blues we've been waiting for since the World Cup break. 

We saw the Hannibal, Bacuna, Chong and Bielik we haven't seen for a while, the aggressive, high energy, in your face performances and what followed was confidence, trickery and a bit of quality. Put the work in and get your rewards.

The question is consistency now. Can they do this regularly? Can they push through when they're tired? Can they stand up when things aren't going their way? That's the challenge now. 

It was also great having a full bench for what feels like the first time this season. And I don't mean to disrespect some of the lads that dropped out, but when you're bringing on Gardner, Hall, Deeney and Dean from the bench, it makes such a difference. There's no drop in quality or legs. 

We should be braced for change and rotation in upcoming games. We play five matches in two weeks. The likelihood is that every one of the midfield and attack will be rested at some point. And the challenge is for those stepping in to make the most of their chances because our bench is strong again. Eustace h as options to change things up if players aren't performing.