West Brom lacked quality against Swansea – Alan Pardew

Alan Pardew lamented West Brom’s quality and decision-making in the final third after they were narrowly beaten 1-0 by Swansea at the Liberty Stadium.

West Brom are without a win in the Premier League since August and that run continued in south Wales as Wilfried Bony’s late strike condemned them to another defeat.


The visitors had only one shot on target throughout the 90 minutes – a speculative effort from Jay Rodriguez in the first half – and Pardew admitted that his side lacked a spark in attack.

Speaking post-match, Pardew said: “We struggled to create clear-cut chances but we had three or four great opportunities on the break but we didn’t take them and we lacked a bit of conviction.

“It was a really tight game, there was nothing between the two teams really. We were a bit unlucky with the goal, we’ve been caught under the ball a bit and we’ve gone to block it and somehow it’s found a gap to go through.

“The commitment of the players you can’t really fault today, we just need that little bit of quality. Just in that final moment, the final pass, the final decision let us down.

“The team is looking for a spark from an offensive player, a little bit of something special, the organisation of the team and the commitment of the players was good but we can’t say that every week, we need to score goals.”

Since winning back-to-back games in the opening two Premier League games of the season, West Brom have gone 14 league matches without a victory.

That is the club’s longest run in the top flight since a 16 game streak between February 2006 and August 2008 and on that occasion their results were spread out over two seasons.

Pardew has now overseen a 0-0 draw and a 1-0 defeat against teams below West Brom in the table – Crystal Palace and Swansea – and his team face tricky fixtures this week with Liverpool and Manchester United to come.