Brunt rues leaky defence

Baggies must wipe out sloppy goals

By Chris Burton   Last updated: 15th September 2008   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Brunt rues leaky defence

Brunt: Silenced critics

Related links

Teams

Players

Also see

Chris Brunt believes West Brom must become more secure at the back if they are to avoid a relegation scrap.

The Baggies secured their first victory of the season against West Ham on Saturday, but only narrowly scraped home 3-2.

Northern Ireland international Brunt grabbed the winner seven minutes from time to ensure that the defence were let off the hook.

He accepts that the club cannot afford to concede sloppy goals, but hopes the attacking threat posed by Tony Mowbray's men at the weekend will have helped silence those who believe the Baggies lack the necessary firepower to compete in the top flight.

Critics

"I don't think the critics were right in what they have been saying," he told the Birmingham Post.

"We probably didn't play as well as we have done in previous games and gave away a couple of silly goals again. That's something we will have to work on as a unit.

"We were on top for large parts in the first half and found ourselves 2-1 down. We know we can't afford to do that every week but we played some great football at times and created a lot of chances again.

"We have shown we have the quality in the squad but keeping out goals at the other end is going to be a big part of our season."

Asset

A lack of familiarity may be partially to blame for the Baggies' lack of coherence, with new faces given little time to adapt to their new surroundings.

Brunt admits as much, with Jonas Olsson having made his Premier League bow on Saturday after just one training session with his new team-mates.

Brunt added: "I knew who the new lads were but they might not have known who I was. But Jonas has done well - he looks a good asset and a few of his passes started off moves for us, including the one for the third goal."

That winning goal belonged to Brunt, who added: "It's my first Premier League goal so it's special in that sense and something I will always remember - but it doesn't really matter where the goals come from."