A late second-half effort wasn’t enough to earn Albion a point in the Premier League Cup, as they fell to defeat against Watford at Kings Langley on Friday afternoon.
A poor first 45 saw the hosts race into a 3-1 lead at the interval, and Adrian Blake completed his hat-trick at the start of the second 45 to set the young Baggies back further.
However, there was a resilient shift from Richard Beale’s men in the closing stages, as Ken Zohore and Akeel Higgins added to Cianole Nguepissi’s effort to force the issue towards the end of regular time. But an equaliser evaded them, and the visitors returned to B71 empty-handed.
Blake enjoyed his afternoon in the Hertfordshire sunshine for the Hornets and his early second half strike, which completed his treble, helped put a sizeable gap between the home side and the Baggies following Nguepissi’s effort from a corner.
If the first three goals weren’t enough to spark a recovery, the fourth against Beale’s boys seemed to do the trick, with Zohore finishing off a good move down the right to pull a goal back and make it 4-2.
The third goal which injected new life into Albion’s resolve was something they’d been missing throughout proceedings. Again, a well-worked move down the right eventually saw play switched to Higgins on the edge of the box, who remained patient to move his man before curling a strike around him and into the top corner.
That made it 4-3 and the visitors did everything they could to find a highly-sought after equaliser.
Reyes Cleary fired a few attempts wide and Higgins came closest to a leveller, but the attacker’s shot trickled wide of the mark, making qualification from the group stages of the PL Cup look an unlikely prospect following a run of three straight defeats.
Albion: Hollingshead; Nguepissi, Hall (Harper-Bailey), Shaw (Mfuamba); Williams, Whitwell, M.Richards, Ashworth © ; Malcolm (Wangusi), Zohore (Higgins), Cleary.
Subs not used: Cisse.
