Tony Mowbray backs midfield to get the goals for West Bromwich Albion

Dec 3 2008 by Christopher Lepkowski, Birmingham Mail

ALBION’s goal-shy players have been backed by Tony Mowbray to start making the most of their chances.

The Baggies squandered three great chances – through James Morrison, Chris Brunt and Jonathan Greening – to put the game beyond doubt at Wigan on Saturday.

The failure to score underlined the lack of goals from Albion’s midfield this season.

Last season they contributed 32 of the club’s 88 League goals.

But only Brunt and Morrison have scored from the middle of the park this season, with the team’s 11-goal haul being the worst in the top flight.

Even so, Mowbray is confident the situation will improve, not least from midfield where there is more onus on them to score when Albion play with a lone striker.

“We’ve been encouraging them,” Mowbray said.

“Last year, although a different quality of league, our midfielders did chip in with more goals.

“I’m sure the midfield players will score and it’s something that we have to keep working on in training.

“We did a lot of finishing work last week, throughout the team, not just the strikers.

“The main thing for me was that they hit the target.

“They hit them well, maybe too well, which helped the keeper.

“Sometimes if you scuff one or miskick one it can roll past – maybe we need one of those.”

Mowbray claims a five-man midfield, in a variant of 4-5-1, is more creative than a more conventional 4-4-2.

He added: “Without getting into tactics, the statistics we use through ProZone