Sam Allardyce: Lack of 'natural goalscorer' hurts West Brom

A 1-0 loss at Crystal Palace on Saturday means the Baggies are now 10 points from safety with just nine games left to play.

Despite looking destined to be a Championship side next season, Allardyce’s men have largely played well in their last six outings.

But they haven’t got the points their performances deserve with the team constantly falling short despite impressive displays against Manchester United, Burnley, Everton, Newcastle and now Palace.

And Allardyce believes their lack of goals is because they haven’t got a natural finisher.

“I would say the main issue is that we haven’t got a natural goalscorer – that’s the big thing,” the boss said when asked why he feels his side is struggling to score.

“If you have a natural finisher, they score one in two or one in three chances. That is a natural finisher.

“At the moment we don’t have that clinical finisher. We can look at Mbaye (Diagne) and say if he had been onside more, he might have got five or six goals that would have made a difference to us.

“If he had been a better finisher when he was onside, he might have scored seven or eight goals.

“But unfortunately that hasn’t happened for him and he has only got one goal. And the rest of the team haven’t been able to contribute either based on the amount of chances they are creating for themselves. It’s not as if we are playing a game of football now and spending the vast majority of time defending and playing on the counter attack.

“We are hitting better numbers than the opposition. But that unfortunately hasn’t turned into victories because we haven’t been good enough at taking our chances.”

Allardyce has persisted with a front three of Matt Phillips, Matheus Pereira and Diagne in recent weeks meaning the likes of Callum Robinson, Karlan Grant and Grady Diangana have been left on the bench.

Asked if those player are pushing for a starting spot, he said: “You can say that they can push for a place, but the truth is they’d be in already if they had a better goal-scoring record.

“That’s a difficult scenario for me to answer. Do I put them in, and will that improve the performance and will they score a goal?

“Or do I stick with the players who have been playing so well, and who hopefully can turn it around by scoring a few more goals?

“It’s a dilemma for me to think about over the next three weeks.”