West Brom 0-5 Norwich City: FLW report as Baggies hit low point vs 5-star Canaries | OneFootball

FLW report live from The Hawthorns for this Championship fixture

West Bromwich Albion's dismal fortunes in the Championship this season hit a new low as they were battered 5-0 by a resurgent Norwich City side at The Hawthorns.

Eric Ramsay saw his new chargers on the back foot again after 16 minutes when Oscar Schwartau found the bottom corner from distance after being gifted possession, before an Anis Ben Slimane-inspired second half performance saw Norwich run away with proceedings in B71.

The Algerian initially provided Ali Ahmed with his first City goal four minutes into the half, before netting his second strike of the week with a tidy finish from inside the box.

Plenty of Albion supporters then headed for the exits when Ben Chrisene fired a fizzing effort past Josh Griffiths with 17 minutes to go, before Mathias Kvistgaarden rounded off the scoring in the final minute of normal time with a simple tap-in.

West Brom 0-5 Norwich City

Norwich found themselves extremely fortunate not to have conceded inside three minutes when Ben Chrisene's backpass sold Vladan Kovacevic short, although Karlan Grant was unable to fully capitalise on the error.

However, Philippe Clement's side would take the lead with the game's first moment of quality as Schwartau pounced on an error from Callum Styles to unleash his third league strike of the campaign past Griffiths.

Albion's first meaningful attempt of the game came shortly after when Grant headed a Mikey Johnston free-kick over the crossbar from close range, with the home supporters making their frustrations known.

Kovacevic was finally called into action on 31 minutes as the Bosnian was able to narrow Mikey Johnston's angle for a shot or square pass to Josh Maja after the Irishman bypassed three Norwich men to weave his way into the box, with Samuel Iling-Junior heading the subsequent corner wide.

Another set-piece six minutes later resulted in yet another strong opportunity squandered by the hosts as, after an eventual corner was cleared, Krystian Bielik's free header from Callum Styles' outswinging cross flew wide of Kovacevic's right-hand post.

Ramsay's side continued to dominate possession in the final stages of the first period and were extremely unfortunate to see Iling-Junior go inches away from his second of the season with a curling effort which smacked the post.

The Baggies boss rang the changes at half-time, with Jayson Molumby, Jed Wallace and Aune Heggebo all introduced, but they instantly came to no avail as Ben Slimane was able to show Bielik a clean pair of heels before finding the unmarked Ahmed who found the top corner with his first strike in English football.

It was almost three for the visitors straight from the restart when the Sheffield United loanee spotted the advancing Kellen Fisher, who saw two efforts beaten away by Griffiths.

In response, Johnston saw a curling effort deflected wide on 59 minutes. Pelle Mattsson's quick thinking denied Grant the opportunity to test Kovacevic from inside the box after an initial corner was half-cleared, before the Norwich shot-stopper's fine reflexes thwarted Iling-Junior once more after a long-distance effort.

The visiting supporters were in dreamland with 20 minutes to go as Slimane netted his second goal in three days with a smart finish underneath the body of Griffiths after his initial effort came off the post, with a mass exodus ensuing amongst the Albion fanbase.

Those who opted to remain then saw it get even worse when McLean's free-kick was headed straight into the path of Chrisene, who, after gaining his composure, rifled a stunning strike into the roof of the net.

Albion's night was summed up four minutes from time when Heggebo saw a low drive drift well wide of Kovacevic's net, before Kvistgaarden's strike piled on the misery after Papa Diallo was left unchallenged before picking out the Danish forward.

Norwich have now climbed out of the relegation zone, and are just one point behind West Brom, who have got off to the worst possible start under their new head coach.

Player Ratings

West Brom

Josh Griffiths - 4

Chris Mepham - 4

Nat Phillips - 5.5 (Molumby 46" - 5.5)

Charlie Taylor - 4

Isaac Price - 5 (Wallace 46" - 6)

Krystian Bielik - 6 (Campbell 80" - 5.5)

Callum Styles - 6 (Mowatt 63" - 6)

Samuel Iling-Junior - 5

Mikey Johnston - 6

Karlan Grant - 5

Josh Maja - 6 (Heggebo 46" - 6)

Unused Subs: J.Wildsmith, A.Gilchrist, O.Bostock, D.Dike

Norwich City

Vladan Kovacevic - 6.5

Kellen Fisher - 7

Ruairi McConville - 7.5

Harry Darling - 6.5 (Córdoba 46" - 6.5)

Ben Chrisene - 8 (Stacey 79" - 6)

Pelle Mattsson - 7

Kenny McLean - 7

Tony Springett - 6.5 (Slimane 46" - 8.5)

Oscar Schwartau - 7.5

Ali Ahmed - 7.5 (Diallo 62" - 7)

Jovon Makama - 6.5 (Kvistgaarden 71" - 7.5)

Unused Subs: D.Grimshaw, J.Medic, J.Wright, M.Jurasek

Eric Ramsay's thoughts as West Brom blown away by Norwich City

Reacting to a grim night from Albion's perspective, Ramsay's post-match thoughts were: "Unexpected is the first thing I would say, in the sense that I felt we carried good momentum from the Middlesbrough game.

"I think I felt everyone felt very positive going into this game, and I think what we saw in the opening 15 to 20 minutes was a shock, in the sense that we looked a team that really lacked assurance and a sense of personality and confidence.

"I think that first 15 to 20 minutes fed into the rest of the game and it was very difficult to recover from that point onwards," he claimed.

"I won't dwell on this too much as I know it's entirely unacceptable what's happened tonight. But, I have to try and separate my eight days here from everything that's gone before and the general feeling around the group.

"The second I get drawn into that then I'm not doing what I was brought here to do, which is bring a real sense of positivity and to try and help the group move forward.

"I've got to strike that balance well, holding individuals to high standards, but making sure we can find a way through."

Philippe Clement reacts as Norwich City run riot vs West Brom

Reacting to his side's dominant performance in the West Midlands, Clement said: "I'm really pleased about the performance of the team and several really good things.

"A clean sheet. We didn't have many of those this season, so that was a target. Scoring five goals away from home is an important thing.

"We spoke about it a couple of weeks ago that we were too dependable on our strikers to score goals, so we need to create a team where danger comes from everywhere," he added.

"It's getting better and better and the players are getting more used to these situations than a few weeks ago when we missed more chances, so that's a positive.

"But, the hunger and desire of the team, it's so crucial that we keep it like this.

"They were really happy after the game, and they deserve to be. Now I want to see this hunger and desire in the weeks to come," the Belgian stated.

"Three points. It's a good victory, but we still have a long way to go this season, and we need to put standards high.

"They set standards today. I want to keep that as our minimum and go from there."

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