Carlos Corberan takes West Brom back to basics
Carlos Corberan wants to see Albion improve on some of the basics of defending as they hunt the return of a solid base.
The Baggies' clean sheet record under Corberan was the envy of the rest of the Championship until the early part of 2023, but they have since found it difficult to keep the back door shut, particularly on the road.
Corberan's side have conceded 15 goals in their last six games away from The Hawthorns in all competitions, winning just one of those. A last away clean sheet was Boxing Day at Bristol City.
Asked if he saw a more general reason to the change in Albion's defensive record, head coach Corberan said: "I think more separate things, being honest.
"What we need to analyse is the chances we concede. It's true that we didn't defend well (at Watford on Monday) because we were too open in moments we need to be more compact, narrow and more close.
"In previous games, more numbers of goals we have conceded have arrived by free-kicks or corners, from set-pieces, something we keep insisting to manage well.
"In open play, if you analyse goals conceded in previous games we didn't concede too much as we did concede on Monday."
The Baggies were all too often wide open at Vicarage Road earlier this week and despite netting two fine equalisers fell 3-2 on a night Corberan also cited poor game management as Albion twice conceded soon after scoring.
"It's proven in football to never stop and now is the moment to analyse everything, because football demands for us to grow and improve, to me, to the players, to everyone," added the Spaniard.
"This is the responsibility we have in our club, as staff and players, because if we defend well we have more opportunity for the three points and the clean sheet allows at least one point.
"We haven't been able to achieve what we have (previously) achieved, so now we need to recover some of the basics and some of the game management to be the strong team in defence that we need to be."
Albion's defensive record at the The Hawthorns has been highly impressive, by comparison.
A last-minute free-kick from Blackburn's Ben Brereton Diaz last week stopped a bid for a club-record seventh consecutive home league win without conceding.
