West Brom make admirable start to Championship season following Maja’s brilliance on opening day

A look at the Albion’s start to life so far this season.

Transcript

00:00Charlie, on to West Bromwich Albion, obviously an incredible start away at QPR on the opening

00:06day, you know Dross Maggio with a fantastic hat-trick, where did that sort of come from

00:11and were many fans or pundits going into the game expecting him to produce such a fantastic

00:18opening day performance?

00:19I think a lot of people might have been hopeful to get one goal, but to get all three, I mean

00:24what a performance from Maggio that was. Having all the injury problems he's had and not

00:29being able to get any consistent minutes to explode onto the scene like that and getting

00:33a hat-trick on the opening day, what a day for him and also for the Albion fans in the

00:38away end. It was a 1-0 lead for QPR in the first place actually and then to come back

00:43from that and not only to win 2-1 but 3-1 I think is seriously impressive, shows good

00:47mentality and it's a difficult time for West Brom at the moment. I know they've got a lot

00:51of Premier League standard players from the past or maybe ex-Premier League players that

00:54are now more Championship standard, but the squad is still very impressive. I know they've

00:59lost the likes of Yakuzlu and Kipra and Townsend, but they have regained some strength in the

01:05transfer market, not quite like for like replacements, but they have made some good signings, lots

01:09of them, more will be done as well. I think there are positive signs and despite maybe

01:14a few weeks ago we were talking about Albion and saying, are they going to struggle for

01:18the playoffs this year with everything happening? I think they might still struggle, it's going

01:21to be a difficult task and Korbran says it's the biggest challenge of his career, but that

01:26opening day, it's always going to create a bit of a bias in your mind, isn't it, when

01:30they perform like that?

01:31Yeah, and obviously in terms of their September, I know they've got a few games leading up,

01:36but just looking at it, you have obviously the international break and then you come

01:41back with Portsmouth away, Plymouth at home, Sheffield Wednesday away, I mean those September

01:48looks on paper like a bit of a breeze for West Brom. They've got to make sure that they

01:53get these early points or come the end of the season they could be a few points off

01:57and they will be ruined that they don't get these results. How important is September

02:02looking for the Albion?

02:03On paper, yeah, the games are a lot easier because you'd expect all three of those teams

02:07to finish in the bottom half or maybe near the relegation reckoning, but Portsmouth,

02:12to be fair to them, newly promoted, they've not got one of the strongest teams at all,

02:16but they took it to Leeds United, didn't they, away on the first day of the season. Very

02:19impressive performance from them to draw 3-3 Ellum Road. I know that Leeds dominated

02:24that and probably should have won the game, but still to draw 3-3 takes some going and

02:28I can see them being a bit of a threat this year. Plymouth are going well with Wayne Rooney

02:32at the helm and having seen this football firsthand, I'm not too confident in his abilities

02:37and of course, well, Sheffield Wednesday thrashed them 4-0 in their first outing and Wednesday

02:42under Danny Roll, another team that doesn't have the strongest squad, but they've got

02:45a great manager, they've got great fan base and things seem to be clicking for them, so

02:50maybe not so easy against Wednesday. The other two, they should be hopeful.