Premier League: Alan Irvine pleased after West Brom's win at Leicester
Sunday 2 November 2014 15:05, UK
Alan Irvine believes West Brom's 1-0 Premier League victory at Leicester went some way towards vindicating his decision to rest 10 players in the Capital One Cup in midweek.
The Baggies were beaten 2-1 by in-form Bournemouth at the Hawthorns but bounced back to claim a valuable three league points thanks to Esteban Cambiasso's second-half own-goal.
Victory at the King Power Stadium lifted Irvine's side to 10th in the Premier League.
"I'm not satisfied with what happened on Tuesday night, I'm still hurting about that," Irvine said.
"But the fact is if we had played the same team and gone down to Bournemouth, perhaps gone to extra-time, we would have been risking problems at the end of this game against Leicester.
They're a great group to work with, they work really hard every day and they're starting to get the rewards for that
"Every time I turned round Nigel (Pearson) was putting on another forward and clearly we were going to be put under pressure if we were ahead.
"We needed players who were physically and mentally ready to cope with that and I thought they did really well.
"Had we lost here today I still would have felt it was the right decision (to rest players against Bournemouth)."
West Brom have now lost only once in their last six league games - a run that also included victories over Tottenham and Burnley.
"We've got to a situation where we've had a proper group to train with and where everyone is starting to get to know each other," Irvine said.
"We've been able to get a settled team together and been able to get a lot of quality work done on the training ground.
"They're a great group to work with, they work really hard every day and they're starting to get the rewards for that.
"We're fortunate we have intelligent players who are able to follow the plan we have for each game."
The Baggies' upturn in form will be tested to the full in the coming weeks as they host in-form Newcastle before games against Chelsea and Arsenal.
