Lewis Cox and Jonny Drury analyse West Brom's FA Cup defeat to Wolves.
Albion were the side on top in the first half but fell behind to a Pedro Neto breakaway goal.
Matheus Cunha made it 2-0 12 minutes from time but it was the ugly scenes that grabbed the headlines - with crowd trouble in the ground leading to a 35 minute delay in the game.
Albion were the side on top in the first half but fell behind to a Pedro Neto breakaway goal.
Matheus Cunha made it 2-0 12 minutes from time but it was the ugly scenes that grabbed the headlines - with crowd trouble in the ground leading to a 35 minute delay in the game.
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SportsTranscript
00:00 Baggage fans, welcome to Expressenstar.com. My name is Jonny Drury. As always, I'm alongside
00:13 Mr Lewis Cockta, Albin correspondent, after a pretty unbelievable afternoon at the Hawthorns.
00:19 Albin has been beaten by two goals to nil in the Black Country derby, the hotly anticipated
00:24 Black Country derby, first one for 12 years, but we're not really going to be talking an
00:28 awful lot about a really spirited and good performance from Albin. We're going to be
00:31 talking about the ugly scenes, the disgraceful scenes that we saw in areas of the ground
00:37 that have completely marred what was a pretty decent game up to that point.
00:42 Cocksy, we'll start on that and we'll finish on a positive note and talk about Albin's display, but
00:47 we're hearing stories of things that have gone on of potentially Wolves fans in the Albion end, but
00:54 whatever has happened, what we saw is inexcusable. What we saw was akin to football hooligans.
01:00 Before, before.
01:01 Yeah, long before we were here, you know, 80s, 70s, whenever it was, and it was disgraceful
01:07 really, what we've seen today.
01:08 Yeah, harrowing day really. I mean, most of it went on down in the corner of the Brummie,
01:14 didn't it? And quite a way away from us, but seeing it even from where we did, obviously
01:19 having to report on it, it's not nice at all, is it? Let's be honest, it's awful to see. And I mean,
01:26 that was obviously the main hotspot. But as you said, things were sort of going off everywhere,
01:32 weren't they? Certainly over in the Millennium Corner there, where we saw fans being carried
01:38 away, blood, arrests, you know, down from the Brummie road, stretched all the way down here.
01:45 Looked like an elderly fan to me, Albion fans sort of trying to tell the Albion fans he was okay.
01:51 The rumours sort of hearing, obviously, you know, we're not going to go too into those because,
01:59 you know, it's only sort of hearsay. And obviously, look, we all know people, you and I both know
02:04 people, friends, colleagues, who sit down there and have told us what they think they've seen
02:09 and things like that. But investigation already being confirmed by the FA.
02:12 It's underway, yeah, it's started an investigation.
02:16 Look, what we saw with our own eyes and what happened was that Albion players,
02:20 Kyle Bartley being one of them, I think Thomas Assante being another, but certainly Bartley,
02:23 and a number more Albion players had to go down into that corner and in Bartley's case, grab
02:31 at least one of his kids, possibly two daughters, and bring them away from it and bring them down
02:38 into the tunnel, which is pretty harrowing, isn't it, really, when, you know, obviously, that's the
02:43 player's family area and those players are supposed to be out there, you know, not worrying
02:50 about the safety and health of their family. Awful to see. A dark day, I would say. Like you said,
02:59 I agree that the 80 minutes of football, yes, okay, ended up with Wolves scoring a second goal,
03:04 and we'll get on to this, but I think, you know, it was a good competitive affair with a great
03:08 atmosphere, wasn't it? I hadn't seen, and we hadn't seen online or anything, any real trouble,
03:14 had we? I remember saying to you about halfway through, little bits in the first half, I think
03:20 we think Wolves fans in front of us. And the half of the delay then, yeah, were turned off.
03:24 What I will say, you've mentioned there about the players' families, I've just been
03:28 listening to Carlos Corbijn and all the players' families were safe and I know there's been reports
03:34 of some people injured and we saw someone coming out on a stretch from there, but we do hope that
03:38 everyone's okay. Well, and there will be a number of arrests on the right, so I've seen confirmation
03:43 of at least two arrests, but that's from what we saw, I mean, that's the very starting point,
03:48 is it? Dare I say, the tip of the iceberg. And it just overshadows it, doesn't it, Coxsey,
03:51 in terms of it'll all come out in the wash and I'm pretty ashamed of what I saw today,
03:55 in terms of not just Albion and Wolves, but to see scenes like that in modern day football. Shameful
04:01 is a good word. You know, and I think some people, you know, I've put a tweet out saying
04:05 you don't want to see these scenes and people said, oh no, we do. And I know there's a small
04:08 minority, but we don't want to see these scenes. Everyone loves handbags between players, don't
04:12 they? And a bit of a scuffle and all of that, like we all want a bit of passion and heatedness,
04:16 but not that, not that, because that's, you know, that's, I don't know what that was,
04:21 that's health and safety of fans, isn't it? And of course it is, of course it is. And people's
04:25 families. It will all come out in the wash, I'm sure we'll find out exactly what went on,
04:28 but yeah, pretty disgraceful scenes. Cotty, up to that point, it was a case of, as we thought
04:34 Wolves might do to Albion, and Albion played in his hands, hit on the break twice, but in terms
04:38 of Albion's display, Albion were having all the chances there, but they had three, even four,
04:43 really, really clear-cut chances in that first half. They had a chance in the second half with
04:46 Brandon Thomas to Santé, I think that was at 1-0, that was at 1-0, to equalise. And it was a case of,
04:52 you know, what if in the end today? A performance where for a good hour, Albion very much looked
04:59 like they were the Premier League side at times. Yeah, Albion started much the better side,
05:03 didn't they? First 15 or 20, I think, before it settled down, it was all Albion. Exactly what
05:08 we spoke about in videos, podcasts. I went on WM with Wolves correspondent Liam Keane earlier,
05:14 and I was like, Albion need to start well to use the atmosphere and keep them on their side,
05:18 quiet their way in and down, which happened, didn't it? And Wallace was all over Totti Gomez,
05:23 wasn't he? All over him, couldn't deal with him, and balls into the box, and we've had the
05:29 want on Santé header, the Wallace header, they were the two moments. And you were saying to me,
05:32 weren't you, that these are pretty decent openings, I thought, especially the Wallace header.
05:36 Both free headers. Both free headers, they saw, weren't they? And then, I don't want to dwell on
05:42 this particularly, and we've got a podcast tomorrow, but the first goal, I mean, oh, the first goal.
05:49 In fury, wasn't it? Yeah, it's funny because at half-time, shortly after the first goal, I was,
05:52 what an awful way to concede in any game, in any game. And let's be honest, I spoke to Jed Wallace
06:00 down there in the mid-zone, and he actually referenced how Huddersfield, it's happened,
06:04 Leicester, it's happened, and now this. But different points of the game, obviously different
06:08 contexts, but having on top or forcing set-pieces like the Moat corner, that obviously 10 seconds
06:13 later when Wolves score, I mean, that just shouldn't happen. They're the fine margins,
06:18 aren't they, between the Championship and the Premier League, don't they? They're the little
06:21 moments, you know. You saw how well Neto took his goal at the Brummie, you saw how well Kounia took
06:26 the goal down here. It's an interesting debate, actually. It's an interesting debate because I'm
06:29 all for invention and imaginative attack and creative play, like trying something different
06:34 from set-pieces, and it looked to me, I don't know if Wallace quite confirmed this, but it looked to
06:38 me like Moat was trying to pull it outside the box, like you always use silly old Beckham and
06:43 Scholes, you know. But for Wallace, actually, ironically, to smash it in or at least take a
06:47 touch. Maybe a little bit ambitious. But yeah, the authority of Wolves read it well and broke away,
06:52 and 10 seconds later they score. And it's an interesting debate because, you know,
06:55 this is an argument, isn't there? Like, I just sort of toss it in the box and let Bartley attack
06:59 it or Kipra. But then there's no saying Wolves don't head clear or the keeper doesn't grasp it
07:03 and they clear. But to have fallen behind, the first goal was so key, wasn't it? Let's be honest.
07:09 To have fallen behind in that manner when you're on top, you're the one threatening, you're
07:13 having the play, the efforts at goal, so frustrating. And I don't think I've been
07:18 quite carried the same threat and the same sort of amount of chances after the break until about 20
07:24 minutes to go, that Thomas Assante moment. Just bought Tom Fellows on Sunday, that was the big
07:30 ace in the, you know, whatever the saying is, that was the big...
07:33 Ace in the pack?
07:35 Yeah, I don't know what I'm trying to say. That was the big one for the head coach to bring on
07:40 and hopefully... Because it was a very young Athéon Pinch, wasn't it? Extremely young,
07:44 nine players absent today for Albin. All senior players who all probably would have been in and
07:48 around it involved. Fellows comes on, immediately sets up that massive chance for Assante. I mean,
07:53 at the time I thought, hmm, that feels like the moment. A few minutes later, obviously,
07:58 Albin, high defensive line, Kounia gets played in, just onside, finishes brilliantly, doesn't he,
08:02 unfortunately? And then, obviously, everything we spoke about kicked off and when it resumed
08:08 35 minutes later, you know, 36 minutes later, strange, strange, something we've never experienced.
08:13 It was a weird 10 or 12 minutes, wasn't it? It was weird. I mean, Albin still had moments.
08:18 OK, Griffiths has had a save right at the death to deny 3-0, but it was all Albin. But I wrote in
08:25 our matchday blog, it almost felt like a friendly or like a testimonial. The roar from the crowd had
08:31 gone because everything felt a little bit redundant after what had happened to me. I
08:35 would have been really interested if Albin had got a goal back. Swift was denied, wasn't he?
08:39 But a lot to unpick, really. I mean, you're just trying to remember almost what happened on the
08:45 footy side of it. But actually... Overshadowed by what? Oh, massively tainted and overshadowed,
08:51 massively. There's only one talking point, unfortunately. I mean, Albin lost the football
08:55 side of it as well. Let's not kid ourselves, they played well but still lost. But unfortunately,
08:59 totally tarnished and overshadowed by the events. And that's, you know,
09:04 we mentioned the investigation. Obviously, that will lead to punishments.
09:08 Yeah, I mean, fines, you know, great, isn't it? Just... One for another day as the investigation
09:16 develops. But a dark day, definitely. A dark day, definitely. Positive signs but ugly scenes
09:22 on the day that Wolves break their 27-year-long hoodoo at the Hawthorns. What's that, mate? One
09:27 win in 27 years? Seven no wins? Still a bad record, isn't it? Couldn't quite make 10,000 days, eh?
09:34 Final score here at the Hawthorns, Albin nil Wolves 2. All the rest of the reaction to today
09:40 and everything we've seen on ExpressSR.com and we'll be back tomorrow with the Bad News Broadcast.