Crystal Palace 3-1 West Bromwich Albion: 5 Key Things We Learnt

4. West Brom Struggle In The First Half

In the initial 45 minutes West Brom were very poor and their failure to perform saw them head into the break trailing 2-0. The second half saw them improve and pull one back 40 seconds after kick-off, but even then it was too late to salvage anything, and it meant the team spent the second half desperately chasing any points. It was their poor first half showing that cost them in this game, which manager Pepe Mel identified in his post match press conference, and in order to avoid the drop the Baggies need to perform throughout the 90 minutes and not just after the interval. If they don't arrest that trend, they'll head into every half time behind, with a mountain to climb, which seems to have been the trend throughout the season. In the previous game against Liverpool they were poor in the first 45 and managed to secure a 1-1 draw in the second period after trailing 1-0 at the break, which was a wonderful result for the Baggies, but if they start playing at 0 minutes, rather than 45 minutes, they could pull away from the foot of the league. The frustrating thing is if the Baggies had performed as well as they did in both second halves of those games, for the entire time, they could've finished with the maximum six points, which would have drastically altered the standings in the league table.