Source: Team_Talk
Di Matteo hails Baggies bouncebackability
West Brom manager Roberto Di Matteo hailed his players for bouncing back from their opening-day thrashing with a 1-0 victory over Sunderland.[LNB] Albion were humbled 6-0 at Chelsea on their return to the Premier League last week and were in need of a morale-boosting result at the Hawthorns on Saturday. [LNB]That was achieved thanks to a winning goal from debutant Peter Odemwingie nine minutes from time, and Di Matteo felt it was nothing less than his team deserved.[LNB]"We were looking for a reaction from the players and I think they responded very well," Di Matteo said.[LNB]"It was a great performance and a deserved win.[LNB]"We kept a clean sheet, we scored the goal and maybe could have scored a second one.[LNB]"But you can't ask for more from your players - they played a very good game against a good team in Sunderland and now we have got points."[LNB]The only dampener for the Baggies was an ankle injury sustained by Jerome Thomas, who was substituted at half-time and will be assessed over the next few days.[LNB]Otherwise, it was a good day at the office for the newly-promoted side, with Odemwingie looking lively on his first appearance, just 24 hours after his transfer from Lokomotiv Moscow had been confirmed.[LNB]The Nigeria forward was immediately in the thick of the action and missed the target when clean through with just eight minutes gone.[LNB]He also saw a powerful strike rebound off Paulo Da Silva with quarter of an hour remaining, but made no mistake in the 81st minute as he collected James Morrison's pass and slid a low shot under Black Cats goalkeeper Simon Mignolet.[LNB]Sunderland manager Steve Bruce lamented his team's inability to contain Odemwingie's threat.[LNB]"The goal sums our afternoon up - the boy is in between us again," Bruce said.[LNB]"We spoke about that at half-time because we had had a warning shot in the first five or 10 minutes.[LNB]"But all afternoon the boy played in between our two centre-backs, we didn't pick him up and we have been punished for it."[LNB]Bruce called on his players to develop some "backbone" for away fixtures after seeing the team struggle once again on the road as they did for much of last season.[LNB]"We didn't prepare any differently and as the manager, you take the rap for it - have you prepared them right, have you done this or that right?" Bruce said.[LNB]"But it was the same preparation as we did for (last week's home match against) Birmingham, and certainly we were a shadow of the team we see at the Stadium of Light.[LNB]"We can't take it for granted that we are in this Premier League, because it is a tough, tough league.[LNB]"Unless we start to have a bit of backbone about us away from home, then we are going to have afternoons like that too often."
