West Brom feels afflicted by its £4m decision and left to buck an unwelcome trend…

languid After Middlesbrough defeated them 1-0 on Saturday, West Bromwich Albion did not leave Teesside in a particularly joyous mood. Just before halftime, Morgan Rogers—a player Albion is familiar with from his formative years—finished off an incredible individual effort with a well-taken goal.

With several teams either above or directly below them in the Championship table, Albion has now only managed one win in their last five games. December is proving to be a difficult month that most teams at this level will have to deal with at some point during a 46-game season.

With Norwich visiting on Boxing Day, Albion won’t have much time to think about this. However, a response is still necessary, just as it was after the equally devastating loss at Sunderland earlier this month. And Albion has to give it. The talking points from Riverside Stadium are listed below.

 

Recurring run-in

Every time Cedric Kipre finds out that James Linington is managing an Albion game, he has to shiver. Kipre was protesting against Linington here once more, no doubt still mentally damaged from the encounter with Blues earlier in the season, where he was penalized for challenging Koji Miyoshi in a decision and a result that turned the game in Blues’ favor.

To be fair, Albion had been warned by Izzy Jones—who scored against them in a similar fashion in the season’s first game—that he would try to rush and slip by their defense. In the initial incident, Alex Palmer produced a crucial stop. Subsequently, Jones—who was initially deemed to be offside but was later verified as being on—got back in.

Kipre hardly made contact with the winger, who fell down as he was close to goal. The audience yelled for a red card, but Kipre was not pleased with Linington’s decision to limit the color of his card to yellow. The Ivorian has been excellent over the past few months, but he struggled overall here, as did many others.