Carlos Corberan knows West Brom must improve in final third after Millwall draw

Posted Sunday, October 06, 2024 by PA

West Brom head coach Carlos Corberan admitted his team must do more to break down the opposition after a 0-0 draw against Millwall in the Sky Bet Championship.

Albion have now failed to score in their last two outings and gone three matches without a win while this stalemate was their second 0-0 draw at The Hawthorns this season.

Chances were thin on the ground but after seven-goal top scorer Josh Maja missed the best opportunity of the game, Millwall had the most openings.

Danny McNamara had a shot scrambled away by goalkeeper Alex Palmer and Femi Azeez missed the ball from an open goal before substitute Mihailo Ivanovic headed straight at Palmer late on.

“We tried our best with lots of commitment but we need to find a way to score a goal,” said Corberan. “We need to make chances and we didn’t do that.

“We had enough players on the pitch to help us. We changed in the second half to attack them and put Grady Diangana on the left to attack the left side.

“We tried many things to beat them but could not. We tried to stretch them and tried to create possibilities.”

Corberan added: “We need to work in behaviours that help us. We need to have more possibilities and we need to have the ball in the box more.

“We will work to improve to have more time on the ball.

“It’s not the first time as a coach I’ve only achieved one point from games like this. We need to improve as a team in the final third.”

Corberan admitted it’s been a frustrating few days but feels perspective needs to be added to look at the season as a whole after Albion recently topped the table.

“It was a difficult week – we have only taken one point from nine,” said the Spaniard. “But consider the first nine games we have earned 17 points.

“If we analyse the last two games we need to improve in attack but I did not see a bad game today or against Middlesbrough.

“The first 45 minutes at Sheffield Wednesday (3-2 defeat) were the worst. But if you eliminate that, we have played well.”

Millwall manager Neil Harris was delighted with the way his side stuck to the plan.

“We were very respectful to West Brom’s strengths both on the pitch and the bench – and a little bit envious!” he said.

“We knew they were going to control the ball and we had a clear gameplan which the players executed brilliantly.

“It was the areas where they had the ball that were important to us.

“They played where we wanted them to play – we picked two very good one-versus-one defenders against their wide players.

“We defended the ball in our box – I can only remember them having one chance when Josh Maja got free in the first half from a cross.

“Our goalkeeper didn’t have a save to make in the second half and we had three, maybe four really good chances.”

Regarding Azeez’s miss, Harris confessed: “I’m not quite sure what happened – you saw Femi’s reaction and I don’t think he can quite believe how he missed it.”