Baggies boss hails Koumas

Tony Mowbray has praised Jason Koumas for his efforts in West Brom's win over Ipswich.

West Brom manager Tony Mowbray praised man of the match Jason Koumas for his efforts in the Baggies' 2-0 home win over Ipswich.

Koumas scored his sixth goal in nine games to help cement West Brom's place in the top six of the Championship table.

The Welsh international was switched from the left flank to a more central role for the second half of the game, a decision which clearly paid off.

Mowbray was quick to praise Koumas' performance in the game.

"We have got players with the ability to win matches out of nothing," said Mowbray.

"I don't know if Ipswich possess someone who can hit a 25-yarder into the top corner like that. We do - and we have seen that all season.

"Koumas has got the ability to score wonderful goals and win you matches on days like today when you are not as fluent as you would like to be.

"His technical ability is there for the world to see. We tinkered with his position a bit today, and I think he relished it and got into some good goalscoring areas.

"That switch was to get him to influence the game more and to get Kamara into areas where he can do more damage - and I think those little changes helped the team."

Diomansy Kamara had given West Brom the lead before Koumas put the icing on the cake, catching the rebound from a spot kick to make the score 2-0 to the Baggies.

Mowbray praised his opponents though, adding: "We know what Ipswich are about. We talked at length about them, and I sat and watched them play 90 minutes against Coventry last week where they dominated the football match for 45 minutes.

"This was running along a similar vein. They are a decent football team, good technical players. They move the ball away well in little triangles and can dominate the football.

"Even though they did that in the first half, we had the best two chances.

"We got to grips with it in the second half, and little subtle changes helped the team. We got our rewards, and it could have been more convincing later on.

Former Ipswich player Mowbray conceded Albion were fortunate to be awarded a penalty for hand-ball against Sylvain Legwinski from a Kamara cross.

"They will feel hard done by. I thought they were hard done by with the penalty kick, a bit like us last week - but that's football."

Ipswich manager Jim Magilton fumed: "The penalty was a shocking decision. I thought the referee was giving a corner, and then he has obviously changed his mind.

"He said that Legwinski has deliberately hand-balled. Our players asked him that. It was a poor decision. While it was 0-0, I felt very comfortable.

"Our possession was very good, and for half-an-hour we controlled the game. We just lacked a killer touch in front of goal. That was disappointing. We didn't really create enough.

"But to come here and play for 45 minutes in the manner we did was very good. We knew they were going to have periods in the game where they would dominate the ball with the quality they have - but we were doing well until the penalty."

West Brom have now won five games on the trot at the Hawthorns, scoring fifteen goals in the process.