Coventry 0-2 West Brom: Grady Diangana on target as Carlos Corberan’s Baggies climb to fifth

West Brom continued their rise up the Championship table as they climbed to fifth after a 2-0 win over Coventry on Monday night.

Grady Diangana put the Baggies in front after 17 minutes with his second goal in as many games, following a glaring error from Sky Blues goalkeeper Ben Wilson.

Haji Wright passed up a glorious chance to level early on in the second half, but substitute Brandon Thomas-Asante made it two after the break, despite appearing to have strayed offside in the build-up, punishing the hosts’ failure to convert any of their 15 shots.

West Brom move to within two points of third-placed Leeds and 11 points of second-placed Ipswich after their fourth league win in six games, with Coventry – who lost at home for the first time in 10 games – still all the way down in 20th after their fifth defeat of the campaign.

In-form West Brom climb again

It was a competitive start at the CBS. West Brom’s Kyle Bartley was denied by both the post and the offside flag after connecting with Jed Wallace’s cross, while at the other end, Haji Wright had a shot charged down before half-hearted penalty appeals were turned down when Ben Sheaf’s shot appeared to hit Cedric Kipre’s arm.

When the deadlock was broken, the lead was gifted to the Baggies. Nathaniel Chalobah hit a shot from 25 yards that Wilson fumbled, which allowed Diangana to nip in and slot the loose ball over the line.

From there, Coventry had countless opportunities to level. Wright attacked a lovely ball from Liam Kitching with his weaker foot and skewed wide and he saw another saved by Alex Palmer from a tight angle, with Tatsuhiro Sakamoto’s follow-up blocked. They had generated an xG of 1.28 at the break.

Six minutes into the second half, Wright had the chance to bring Coventry level once and for all. Alex Mowatt’s slide inadvertently sent him clear, but after giving Palmer the eyes, he sent his low shot skidding disappointingly past the left-hand upright.

The hosts’ attacking intent waned after that and soon after, the game was taken away from them altogether. Matt Phillips twisted his way out of trouble and pinged a pass forward to Thomas-Asante, who raced on and finished emphatically, despite straying marginally ahead of the last man.

Callum O’Hare, on his first home appearance since December 21 2022, was denied a late penalty after a coming-together with Okay Yokuslu in the box, too, so with no response, the Baggies marched on.

The managers

Coventry’s Mark Robins:

“They started brightly and we didn’t get on top of that until we were a goal down and then they drop away and only come after us when we are trying to play out. It’s been a feature of our games for the last few; Bristol City was one, Rotherham midweek last week and then tonight again, where we’ve been in the game, created good chances and just not taken them.

“That’s the consequence of having a new group and just working through. And always, you get teething problems and you get issues. I’ve just said to the players to not let this affect their confidence. It looks like we need a little bit of a boost, but, ultimately, that’s only going to come through hard work and we need to carry on.”

West Brom’s Carlos Corberan:

“I saw a game where we had to work a lot to get a positive result. We knew that it would be like this; the fact that no team has won here [this season] shows how difficult it is to come and win in Coventry. I asked the players for two things before the game: one was resilience because we know they have players with a lot of quality, especially with the first 11 they put out, with a lot of playmakers.

“The second key for me was personality to attack. In the first minutes of the first half, we showed a lot of personality, we dominated the game and put the game in the attacking half, but after we scored, we started to drop and we were suffering too much.

“The strength of Coventry was to attack and we had to compensate for this in two ways: defending well and attacking more. With the passing of the minutes, we adapted better to the circumstances of the game, to the advantage they were using.”

What’s next?

Both teams are back in action at 3pm on Saturday November 4. Coventry travel to Deepdale to take on Preston, while West Brom host Hull at The Hawthorns.