The pressure on Steve Bruce increased as Preston produced one of the narrow football scores of the midweek action in the Championship. Emil Riis, Preston’s fourth goal scorer so far this season, scored the game-winning goal to give Ryan Lowe’s squad their first victory in seven league games at Deepdale. The bad luck for West Brom keeps on coming. With one victory in 12 games, the Baggies fall to 22nd place and are two points from a playoff spot. Bruce has stressed the need of breaking a disastrous pattern of conceding in the first 15 minutes of games. Bruce made six changes from the Swansea loss over the weekend, but the visitors continued to shoot themselves in the foot.
When Riis broke through, Preston had previously put Alex Palmer to the test, with the goalkeeper brilliantly saving Sean Maguire’s close-range header. Ali McCann put in the effort by outrunning Jayson Molumby in the middle of the field to set up Alvaro Fernandez on the left. Riis was in motion when West Brom’s statuesque backline was reduced to spectators by the frightening low cross that was put in by Fernandez, the polished young Spaniard on loan from Manchester United. The fact that West Brom had trailed in the opening quarter of an hour seven times in their last 12 league games made the situation all too familiar. The visitors attempted to respond through Grady Diangana, who jinked into the box but struck just wide of the far post.
And West Brom’s fresh focus led to Woodman, who had previously been underpaid, finally earning his pay. Following the tenacious Diangana’s cut-back, the substitute Tom Rogic made an easy save after 66 minutes by firing weakly from six yards. But two minutes earlier, Karlan Grant was threaded in on goal, and Woodman made an amazing reflex stop with his leg. Preston successfully resisted West Brom’s feeble late comeback to record their ninth clean sheet of the year and move up four spots to 11th. However, this was again another miserable night for Bruce, who has seen five of the 12 Championship executives he has seen since July lose their jobs.
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