Brighton v West Brom: Slaven Bilic is eager to build on encouraging signs

The Baggies travel to take on Brighton tonight for what is their sixth Premier League outing of the season.

In their opening four matches, they did everything they could to get wins and pick up points.

But last Monday’s clash against Burnley was – in many ways – the beginning of a new dawn.

With the transfer window closed and players match fit due to the work they had done during the international break, head coach Slaven Bilic was finally able to call on a host of his new recruits.

He was also able to deploy them in a 4-3-3 system for the first time this season.

That formation – along with the players in it – made a huge difference and saw the Baggies put in their best performance of the campaign so far.

For the first time this season, Bilic’s men dominated possession.

They also won more second balls. And they registered their first clean sheet.

Now they have the chance to go again at Brighton and grab that elusive first win of the campaign.

And Bilic says they can get it if they use the Burnley performance as a platform from which to build.

“All I can ask from the guys is to improve on Burnley – Burnley has to become our minimum standard,” the boss said.

“Then with a little bit of luck, with better finishing and with a little bit of magic and bravery, we will get that win sooner rather than later.

“Against Burnley we weren’t happy with the result. But we found a lot of positives we can build on.

“The next game we are expecting to build more confidence, more patterns and more good vibes.

“Point-wise, overall, I am not happy. Performance-wise, though, we are growing. To compete at this level you need experience, you need quality, you need organisation.

“We got that from some of the players who came in against Burnley.

“And we will get it from some of the players that were already here through the learning process.”

Bilic believes the players he now has at his disposal suit a 4-3-3 formation.

“That is the system where you get most of the players in positions where they feel comfortable and where they can give their best offensively and defensively,” he said.

“It looked really good. It was one of the big ideas to play this season but we didn’t have the players available to do it before.

“It’s definitely going to be one of two systems we are going to use this season and that was planned.

“But we had to wait a bit longer to get the players with the attributes we needed to play that way.”

Key to Albion’s impressive showing against Burnley was the midfield trio of Jake Livermore, Conor Gallagher and Filip Krovinovic.

It was the first time they have all played together. But Bilic believes they are players who compliment each other.

“The guys up front played well and that gave a little bit of space to the midfielders – it’s teamwork of course,” the boss said.

“But are those three midfielders the main reason why we had ball possession, we were solid, resilient and organised? Yes, they are the reason for that.”

Brighton have just four points from their opening five Premier League matches but are well-known for playing exciting, attractive football under Graham Potter.

“They are a ball-playing side, they play very nice football,” Bilic added.

“The points they have on the board doesn’t match their performances.

“They are a very good side, we will have to be on the top of our game, very resilient, very solid and very good with and without the ball. But this is a very good opportunity for us to get something.”