West Brom boss Allardyce gives verdict on Crystal Palace penalty kick
BY KAI BENNETT
West Bromwich Albion manager Sam Allardyce had no argument about Crystal Palace’s penalty in yesterday’s 1-0 loss at Selhurst Park.
Luka Milivojevic’s first-half spot kick proved decisive as the Eagles ran out 1-0 winners in a tight game.
“It’s the same old same old story in the last eight to 10 games that we’ve had where our performances have been far greater than the result we’ve achieved,” said Allardyce. “A silly penalty when Palace, apart from when we started taking more chances in the second half, never really looked like scoring – but they get the penalty.
“I have no arguments against it, it was a penalty. Our problem is in the final third and the opposition’s third, we’ve doubled and trebled the amount of shots they’ve had but we’ve had 12 shots and only one on target, which tells all the problems we’ve suffered over the last eight nine games.
“As hard as we may work in training, it appears we just don’t have a natural goalscorer, the one who can put the ball in the back of the net, the one that can get us a goal to win us a game.
“Our football is very very good, our defending is very, very good, our entry into the final third is excellent – but our final pass or final finishing isn’t there. The fans will hear me talking about this like a broken record or the needle stuck because it’s the same old story. Yet again we’ve suffered a defeat when we’ve outplayed the opposition most of the game.
“The first goal was going to be the most important, because we are not free scoring and everybody knows that. We might get into the opposition’s penalty area and create more opportunities than the opposition, which is what we are doing at the moment, but our conversion rate, accuracy rate and our finishing rate is not giving us any chance to get more than one goal at the moment, and even that’s a struggle.
“We have to battle on. We have to keep going. We’ve got nine games to go. We have a responsibility to do better in terms of trying to win more games from now until the end of the season so whilst we may say we’re playing much better than the opposition we have to turn that play into victories.”
