Carlos Corberán praised the “mature” way his team competed at the Cardiff City Stadium on Tuesday night as they earned a hard-fought 1-0 victory over the Bluebirds.
Jeremy Sarmiento’s spectacular second-half strike secured a fifth win in six Sky Bet Championship matches – a result which moved the Baggies up to third in the table ahead of Wednesday night’s fixtures.
The encounter in the Welsh capital was a tight one, with both teams finding it difficult to produce their fluent football.
The Albion had to defend strongly towards the end of the game and win their fair share of second balls and duels, and the boss believes the players put in plenty of effort in order to achieve an “important three points.”
He said: “I think today, we have achieved three points because of the maturity of the team in terms of how they competed.
“Sometimes you cannot find the harmony that you want to find as a team, or perhaps you can’t be as fluent with the ball as you’d like. However, you can’t get frustrated and you always have to compete.
“For me, the players improved in the second-half and they put a lot of effort in to achieve the three points in a very balanced game.
“It was important to find our players with quality, especially the players on the sides. We needed to find one action that could unbalance the game, and we found that through Jeremy Sarmiento’s goal.
“After the goal, we had more options in terms of counter-attacks and in the transitions. We could have achieved something else, but unfortunately we couldn’t do that and find a second goal.
“We had to suffer defensively a little bit at the end and the players stayed concentrated to achieve these very important three points.
“In football, especially in the Championship, after back-to-back games the basics of football need to be there, especially when you can’t manage the ball well enough to dominate the game and put the opposition in the opposite half.
“When these things don’t happen, it’s important to win the challenges and the duels and the team had a good answer managing these things.
“The players are adapting to the different types of games. It’s important to compete in the level that we need and adapt to the different types of games we are going to face.
“After winning a very important game on Saturday and putting a lot of effort in, the team’s commitment to achieve three points tonight was very good.”
