Matt Phillips injury tempers West Brom celebrations after win over Chesterfield

Posted Wednesday, January 18, 2023 by PA

West Bromwich Albion head coach Carlos Corberan had mixed feelings after his side exposed the 70-place gap to National League Chesterfield to win their FA Cup third-round replay 4-0 at The Hawthorns.

West Brom’s reward for their biggest FA Cup win for nearly eight years is an all-Sky Bet Championship tie at Bristol City in the fourth round.

But a late thigh injury to substitute Matt Phillips tempered Corberan’s mood with a crucial Sky Bet Championship game at leaders Burnley on Friday night.

“In some ways we played well, in some ways we played poorly,” said the Spaniard. “The best thing was the result, the worst thing was the injury to Phillips. I hate this.

“He felt something in his quadricep muscle that didn’t allow him to stay in the game. He will have it looked at tomorrow but we’re missing some players in attack now such as (Brandon) Thomas-Asante (suspended), (Karlan) Grant and now Phillips.

“So we have to find a solution. Sometimes you have these things and you have to adapt.

“We made the decision to give Phillips those minutes and John Swift more minutes because he hasn’t played as much as Phillips, and to keep going in the cup, this is what we wanted to do.”

Swift gave Albion a 23rd-minute lead with a classy, curling left-footed finish from 16 yards after Jake Livermore beat Darren Oldaker to Jamie Grimes’ wild clearance.

Tom Rogic then punished Jeff King’s backheel from close range in the 49th minute after Adam Reach’s cross following Swift’s 70-yard pass.

Livermore fired home in the 55th minute after the defence failed to clear Swift’s corner and substitute Jovan Malcolm headed home Taylor Gardner-Hickman’s cross in the first minute of time added on.

But Corberan was delighted with Swift’s contribution.

“He’s a very special player,” he added. “He has a lot of qualities and talent.

“He can unbalance any game with his passes and the last action he has, whether that be his set-pieces or his finishing.

“So he’s a very important player and the closer he is to the highest level, the better for us.”

Chesterfield assistant manager Danny Webber said: “We were very disappointed with the four goals.

“After you don’t beat a team like West Brom in the first game, the replay is always going to be tough, but if they carved us open and scored four we could live with it a bit more.

“The manner of conceding the goals whether it was West Brom or a team from our league was a bit of a sickener.

“We played some really good stuff at times but should have pulled the trigger earlier.

“When you make mistakes against these teams, they do punish you. But hopefully we can look back on promotion at the end of the season.”