James Shan tells West Brom to take no more risks at the back

The Baggies have conceded a number of goals this season trying to play out from the back, and that deficiency reared its head again on Tuesday night.

Jake Livermore lost the ball on the edge of his own box after goalkeeper Sam Johnstone slid him a pass, and it resulted in a Bristol City goal that sparked a 20-minute blitz that left the Baggies 3-0 down.

Shan says he’s spoken to the players about playing ‘no risk’ football near their goal, and reiterated after the game they needed to go back to basics.

“We spoke about a no risk mentality in that defending third and not letting teams jump all over us, and gain momentum and we did exactly that,” he said.

“We need a no risk mentality in that defending third. Defenders defend. Almost a lower league mentality to just clear your lines in the first ten or 15 minutes to eradicate that.”

Starting slowly has been a habit all season. The Baggies have conceded 12 goals in the opening 15 minutes of games, which is more than any other 15 minute period and six more than they have scored in that time.

When Shan was asked to explain the reasons behind it, he said: “We’re a Premier League team who have dropped down, teams want to start bright and fast against us, and be energetic.

“It’s also a clear stat for all to see, we’ve generally struggled in the opening 10 or 15 minutes. If you’re given that information as an opposing team you’ll jump all over that.

“Those errors and the manner we defended were very disappointing and can’t continue to happen.

“You look at this team’s success in the Premier League, it’s been with a shut-out mentality, being dogged and defending with discipline.”

Albion scored two goals in the second half at Ashton Gate but couldn’t complete the comeback, and slipped to back-to-back defeats.

But the caretaker boss, who will be in charge against Preston on Saturday, has urged his side to take the positives from the second half into the rest of the season.

“It would be very easy for us to be ultra negative about the result and moments of the performance,” he said. “It’s obviously looking very apparent it will be a play off route.

“We have to take the positives. If we take the negatives from that on Thursday and Friday you take it into the mood in the camp and on the training ground you take into your performance against Preston on Saturday.

“I’m not parking to one side things we need to be better at, we’ll 100 per cent highlight it and work on it. There’s a lot of positives in there as well.”