‘Didn’t adapt’ - What Carlos Corberan said about West Brom loss to Bristol City

Carlos Corberan says his West Bromwich Albion side lacked the ‘mentality’ to win their FA Cup fourth round tie against Bristol City on Saturday, as the Baggies were defeated 3-0 at Ashton Gate.

Sam Bell opened the scoring in the 12th minute, before Alex Scott added a second before half-time. Minutes into the second half, Bell added his second and City’s third to put the tie to bed.

Corberan felt his side made it too easy for City to create chances: “We created a perfect contest for Bristol and a complicated contest for us because Bristol was sitting deep in defence and using the ball to counterattack.

“It is true that we didn’t have the necessary mentality in the game to win the game. When you put these things together, the result is the consequence.”

One area that the Robins were able to dominate was midfield, Nigel Pearson’s players gave the Baggies little time on the ball and were able to control the tempo of the match from the engine room.

When asked whether the defeat was because his side weren’t secure enough in midfield, Corberan replied: “I think so… When we put the ball in the middle we kept losing the ball. Even playing out from the back, we didn’t adapt to the distances.”

Albion made five changes for the contest, and the Spanish manager also believed that the new faces also didn’t help his side’s performance.

“When you make changes in the team, this can happen. Today for example we changed two players in the defence, the left back and the centre back, and sometimes this can create a lack of relationship between them and the midfield.”