West Brom head coach Carlos Corberan praised the “massive” commitment from his players after their revival continued with a 2-0 win over Stoke at The Hawthorns.
The game will be best remembered for Brandon Thomas-Asante’s stunning overhead kick that found the net and wrapped up victory for West Brom.
It was the Baggies’ third consecutive win for the first time since August 2021, lifting them out of the relegation zone on goal difference.
Kyle Bartley put Albion ahead in the 39th minute, before Thomas-Asante’s moment of magic came in the 50th minute.
“It was a really positive team performance and result,” said Corberan.
“The result was the consequence of the team competing very well from the beginning to the end of the game.
“I think the team showed how important that match was for us.
“We are coordinated and every one of the team is playing at a level of commitment that is necessary in this league.
“We have players with a lot of ability and I give a lot of credit to how they are mentally, how they are playing, what they are doing, and the level of commitment for me is massive.”
Corberan refused to get too excited about Thomas-Asante’s goal.
“He has got the skills to score those sorts of goals,” said the Spaniard.
“We know our strikers need to provide goals; I value a lot the effort Asante was doing and the impact he had when he was playing from the bench or when he played in the first 11, like today.”
Stoke manager Alex Neil admitted his side were second best but said they never recovered from losing forward Nick Powell to a hamstring injury in the 22nd minute.
He said: “They looked more dangerous than we were.
“I thought the turning point was when Nick came off because he picked up Kyle Bartley in our box for set-plays and was a good threat, he looked alive and he linked things.
“But when he came off we struggled to retain the ball, we didn’t defend well enough and we looked second to pretty much every ball.”
Neil blamed himself for Stoke’s lacklustre first-half display because of the formation he picked to avoid isolating his defenders.
“I thought we played 4-4-2 in the first half to make sure we weren’t one against one in the backline,” he added.
“Instead of helping us, it hampered us because we didn’t get any fluency in the game.
“For the first five or 10 minutes they were better – they started quicker out of the blocks.
“I thought we had a 10-minute spell after that when we pinned them in – Nick Powell picked out a great cross for Harry Clarke and we were competitive at that point.”
