Sam Allardyce And Rafa Benitez
If West Brom can replicate their performance against Manchester United on a weekly basis between now and the end of the season then they can still give themselves every chance of remaining in the Premier League, boss Sam Allardyce has insisted. Allardyce was pleased, it not a little frustrated that Albion didn’t convert the chances to win it.
Sam Allardyce said: “I see a squad of players who are getting better and if they apply themselves at that level – or better – in every single game between now and the end of the season they will give themselves a chance. We have to be very satisfied against a team who haven’t been beaten away from home in 18 matches. We had a big opportunity to beat them – to stop that run, but to say you got a point of Man United is big point. We would have liked more obviously. We take the game in its context today, it was a great performance from the boys. That is now what they have to aspire to every single week now.”
Another week awaits now where Albion will be able to integrate their winter signings -including impressive full debutant Okay Yokuslu – further without the interruption of a midweek fixture. On the horizon are now four matches that Albion must simply secure a healthy points return from, or this display against title-chasing United could yet be another false dawn.
Sam Allardyce said: “It’s going to help. Hopefully, the players have applied themselves today based on how we have trained and what we have said we need to do. They have carried that out to the best of their ability. I can’t knock any players’ application or effort and how well they’ve done throughout the entire game. I have talked about sloppy goals for a long time. It was an unbelievable goal they scored. I can’t criticise my team too much for that because of Fernandes’ finish. We didn’t let that get us down, it could have come at the wrong time for us just before half-time. It was their only shot on target in the first half and we had to be patient in the second to get back into the game, but once we frustrated Man United they started throwing men forward and that is when we created those couple of really clear-cut chances, but sadly we didn’t finish one off to win the game.”
