West Brom head coach Carlos Corberan felt his side beat Swansea in the dressing room before the game as they climbed into the Sky Bet Championship’s top two with a 1-0 win.
Jayson Molumby’s first goal for 16 months gave Albion a deserved lead in time added on at the end of the first half to extend their unbeaten start.
Corberan’s side dominated that first period and could easily have been four goals to the good.
“I never heard the dressing room before the game at the level that I heard (today),” said Corberan.
“I was thinking ‘wow – they’ve won’. They won because everyone was challenging the other one, everyone made very clear the mentality we wanted to put in.
“They transferred that mentality from the dressing room to the pitch and played an extraordinary 45 minutes.
“In some moments we didn’t score with a combination of Karlan Grant and Josh Maja but then from a combination between Maja and Molumby we scored a very good goal.
“Because of our ambition of the team, the belief and the mentality that this group of players are creating together is very good.”
In a whirlwind start, Tom Fellows’ angled drive was palmed away, Maja went close with two headers and West Brom were denied a penalty when Darnell Furlong went down under challenge from Eom Ji-sung.
Grant fired over before Molumby finally got their deserved goal. The Republic of Ireland international slid his shot into the bottom corner after two lovely one-twos with Maja carved through Swansea’s defence.
Swansea were much improved after the break but they wasted their chances.
Zan Vipotnik fired straight at goalkeeper Alex Palmer before Eom found himself clear but Darnell Furlong made a tremendous tackle and blocked the shot.
Swansea had a penalty appeal turned down in the 56th minute when Palmer caught Eom with his feet, while Goncalo Franco stabbed wide from close range.
Substitute Uros Racic missed two golden chances to double Albion’s lead, while Fellows blazed over when clean through.
Corberan felt it was a game of two halves and that Swansea worked out West Brom’s press after the break.
“The intensity to press them, to recover the ball, to attack and create chances was high, and we didn’t concede any opportunities,” he added.
“In the second half they found solutions to how we broke their press. But we had the big opportunity of Tom Fellows to score, and we didn’t do it.”
Swansea head coach Luke Williams said: “We were blown away in the first half – the opposition were incredible.
“The players felt really restricted in the way they played and they were probably intimidated.
“We couldn’t cope with them really. But up until the goal, we defended our box extremely well because the onslaught was tough.
“We have quite a number of players with quite limited Championship experience and young players who don’t have a lot of experience full stop. To come here against very good opposition with an elite manager in a very nice atmosphere for the home team is tough for them, and it showed.
“But then the second half our response was incredible. I was so happy with the lads because I asked them to stop playing timidly and within themselves because the opposition and the atmosphere caused them anxiety.”
