Carlos Corberan makes admission after West Brom take point from Leeds United
Carlos Corberan reflected on West Brom's 1-1 draw at Elland Road on Friday night as Albion were denied their first win on the road
Carlos Corberan hopes West Brom will continue to 'keep growing' in an attacking sense as they clinched their first away point of the season at Leeds United on Friday night. Brandon Thomas-Asante's deflection, via Jayson Molumby's initial shot, had nudged the Baggies in front at Elland Road before Luke Ayling's header in the final 20 minutes ensured the points were shared.
Leeds are particularly depleted; they have a host of key players missing with injury and others - including Willy Gnonto and Luis Sinisterra - are hoping to seal transfer moves away before the deadline. It left new boss Daniel Farke with just seven substitutes, and two of those were goalkeepers.
Alex Palmer and Ilan Meslier both made excellent saves at either end, but the Whites could conceivably have taken all the points if a deflected shot in the first half hadn't hit the base of the post. In all, there were many Albion supporters who had hoped to see more attacking intent from their team in order to try and take advantage of Leeds' currently unfortunate situation.
Corberan agrees. Indeed he is to look into why his team dropped so deep having claimed their lead at the beginning of the second half, and why generally the killer touch in the final third was missing, but he hopes that his team will continue to evolve on both fronts.
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"One of the keys for me in the game was to attack better the sides and to move the opponent from one side to the other, and from there to fill it with some deliveries," he assessed. "It's true the time in between the goal and attacking the spaces was not the best. I find a very good chance with Asante in the second half, when if he'd touched the ball and created a penalty...I was watching a little bit lack of timing in the final third of the pitch.
"Especially for me, in some moments we didn't understand well enough the spaces. I saw the team growing in this but we need to keep growing in attack, to attack more and create more and to not just be defending more in games.
"I think before the goal we conceded we were defending too much. The goal we conceded we could've avoided. I need to see why we didn't squeeze up enough, as we had in the first half, which allowed them to play with the keeper as we did in the first half, and why we defended in too low a block and that's why they were more dominant. These minutes were key in the result."
The particular aspect that Corberan was pleased by, however, was how Albion managed the game once Leeds had drawn themselves level; it could've been a particularly dicey final 20 minutes or so with 30,000 home fans urging their team on, but the Baggies dealt with the immediate wave of momentum and actually wrestled it back in stoppage time.
"It's a club and a stadium that I respect a lot from my time here, but I came here to defend my club, one club I am very proud to be a part of," Corberan added. "I was watching a game in a stadium, where it was 11 v 11, but I know the fans here can intimidate you a lot. I liked that I saw my team with a lot of personality, to beat the difficult moments and to go and try and get something from the game.
"I was pleased after conceding the goal, we increased our levels, mentality, determination. In the last minutes Rutter had a good chance, but we found chances in the set pieces and throw ins. At Elland Road, when you are winning and they score to draw, normally the result is not a draw, because these fans can help them achieve the result they want."