West Brom adopt Italian mentality

Nov 25 2009 by Chris Lepkowski

“We have been trying to work on certain aspects of our game.

“It’s paying dividends but we’re still not good enough.

“Hard work has been the key.

“We’ve practiced, we’ve given it a bit of Italian mentality - the perception of not conceding goals, being strong defensively and that’s why it annoys me when we concede goals.

“Saturday (Albion beat Bristol City 4-1) was a great performance but 4-0 looks better than 4-1.

“I’ll happily take one goal against if we’re four nil up but we want to keep clean sheets because it gives you a platform to win games.

“Our last two goals against have been free-kicks and Saturday’s was a great execution by their player.

“Yet we don’t want to concede easy goals or concede from set-pieces.”

Di Matteo’s side take on Sheffield Wednesday this Saturday but may have to make do without Joe Mattock and Roman Bednar.

Mattock is suffering from a badly bruised foot while Bednar remains unwell, having been forced to miss Saturday’s victory.

Speaking about Mattock, Di Matteo added: “Joe’s got no fractures, it’s badly bruised and we’ll see how it is.

“We will assess him on a daily basis. At first the news the doctors gave us wasn’t good and he was stretchered off, but we always knew he needed a scan.

“We shall see how he gets on.”