West Brom 4– 2 Cardiff
by Simon Williams
at The Hawthorns

THE Baggies were cruising for the first 70 minutes against Cardiff City at The Hawthorns on Saturday.

First-half goals from the impressive Matheus Pereira and Grady Diangana gave the home side a commanding lead before Charlie Austin netted his first league goal for Albion on 71 minutes. Game over? Not a chance.

The visitors threw caution to the wind and substitute Danny Ward netted twice in 11 minutes to give the visitors hope while the home crowd sat biting their nails.

But deep into injury time Romaine Sawyers added a fourth to seal the win and move Albion to the top of the table going into the international break.

“It was a great performance for the first 70 minutes. In every aspect of the game, we were playing some breathtaking football,” said Bilic afterwards.

“But I don’t want to ignore the bad (points). I would like to talk positive positive positive positive positive but we’re going to talk about the negative straight away.

“I said to the guys, anything can happen in football. We saw Liverpool and Milan in Istanbul. Milan, the Italians, they’re genius in managing the game and still it happened to them. Football’s a funny game. Once you lose momentum it’s hard to switch it back on.

“Basically I told the guys the team needs a fourth goal. Being 3-0 up with 20 minutes to go, something’s wrong. Why not finish the game at 3-0 or 4-0? We have to manage the game better.

“Afterwards I criticised the players but also told them they should be proud. It’s early days but we have something really good to build on.”