Blues beat Albion in a pre-season friendly as Andy Munro watches.
Blues soundly beat a decent West Bromwich side yet in truth, despite the convincing final score of 4-1, the first hour of the match was very even. Blues took the lead after good work from Siriki Dembele led to Alfie May reinforcing his goal-poaching reputation (definitely a grade up from the disappointing Scott Hogan RIP).
Right from the start, Blues were determined to play the game of playing out from the back and it generally worked, with Bailey Peacock-Farrell very comfortable despite a couple of hair-raising moments. However, the Baggies equalised before half-time when the ball was poked home following a bit of head tennis.
In fairness, similar to the first period, Albion started the second period stronger but faded as Blues took control and it was good to see the Icelander Willum Willumson score to cap a very influential game. Krystian Bielik unfortunately went off injured clutching his shoulder and let’s hope it’s not serious, although his deputy Christoph Klarer did himself no harm, seamlessly fitting in and even netting. The performance was then topped off by the mercurial May flitting through the Baggies’ defence to net Blues’ fourth.
Whilst not on the scoresheet both Ethan Laird and Koji Miyoshi were superb, closely followed by the box of tricks that’s Dembele and also Paik Seung-ho. Whilst it’s best not to get carried away by what was just a dress rehearsal for the real business, there seems every reason to be optimistic about our chances of an instant return to the Championship, although no doubt there will be some blips on the way!
