West Brom 1 - 0 Hull

West Brom 1 - 0 Hull

Saido Berahino 78



It is little wonder that Tony Pulis is so determined to hold on to Saido Berahino. On an afternoon when the West Bromwich Albion head coach seemed close to throwing that famous baseball cap on the floor at times – in particular when Brown Ideye made a pig’s ear of a gilt-edged chance in the first half – it was left to Berahino to deliver the goal that kickstarted Pulis’s latest great escape act.

The best player on the pitch by a distance, Berahino made it five goals in two games under Pulis when he drilled in from 10 yards out after Allan McGregor was penalised for picking up Ahmed Elmohamady’s needless backpass. After looking as miserable as sin in the wake of his four goals against Gateshead in the FA Cup last Saturday, Berahino celebrated his latest strike with relish.

It was his 14th of the season and on the evidence of this gritty, but far from convincing, performance by Albion, that total will need to keep ticking over between now and the end of the season for West Brom to be safe.

While the table makes for much better reading for Albion – they have climbed to 14th place – only goal difference is keeping Hull out of the relegation zone.

For much of the first half, Pulis had been a picture of frustration on the touchline. Pacing up and down, shaking his head and frantically waving his arms around, the Albion head coach looked like a man whose patience was being stretched to breaking point – no more so than when Ideye squandered that wonderful opportunity to open the scoring in the 42nd minute.

Set free by the lively Berahino, whose astute first-time pass opened up the Hull defence, Ideye was clean through on goal with only McGregor to beat. The weak, wayward, right-footed shot that followed summed up Ideye’s Albion career to date – the club-record signing never looked like he would score.

Pulis was furious. He turned his back on the game, walked past the Albion bench and several yards outside the technical area, tugging on his cap.

For Hull, Ideye’s profligacy was a welcome reprieve at the end of a first half in which their injury problems deepened. Nikica Jelavic and Abel Hernandez, who were starting only their seventh game together up front, both limped off inside the first 40 minutes. Robbie Brady and Tom Ince came on in their places and the former, with an audacious left-footed shot on the run, after a mistake by Joleon Lescott, drew a fine one-handed save from Ben Foster at the Albion keeper’s near post.

Both teams huffed and puffed in the second half, yet there was little in the way of quality, and but for the mix up between McGregor and Elmohamady, Hull would have departed with a point.

Four Hull players charged down Berahino’s shot, after the Albion forward was teed up by Victor Anichebe, and just as many waited on the line to try to block, but the ball found a way through and Pulis, at last, had reason to smile and punch the air.

Guardian