West Brom come from behind to see off Luton in Sky Bet Championship win as Grady Diangana scores twice
Sunday 18 August 2019 19:09, UK
On-loan West Ham forward Grady Diangana scored a quickfire brace as West Brom ended Luton's lengthy unbeaten home run in the league with a 2-1 victory at Kenilworth Road.
The youngster was introduced by boss Slaven Bilic at the start of the second half with his side trailing 1-0 and netted twice inside six minutes to earn the Baggies a hard-fought victory.
Luton had threatened first, with James Collins sending a header from Callum McManaman's cross straight at goalkeeper Sam Johnstone in the fifth minute.
The Hatters took the lead after 15 minutes, Martin Cranie crossing from the right for Harry Cornick to bullet a header beyond Johnstone and into the top corner for his first goal of the season.
Matt Phillips tried to level straight away but dragged an effort wide from 20 yards, with Jake Livermore's powerful drive turned over the top by home goalkeeper Simon Sluga.
Cornick was denied a second by the alert Johnstone, who was out quickly to smother from close range, with the rebound bundled behind.
After a poor first half, the Baggies were level just three minutes into the second.
Diangana netted with virtually his first touch, arrowing a drive past the sprawling Sluga and into the bottom corner from 25 yards.
He then made it 2-1 after 51 minutes, instinctively diving to head home a deflected shot from close range to stun the home side, who had been well worth their lead from the first period.
Luton substitute Kazenga LuaLua had a go from 20 yards, his daisy-cutter forcing Johnstone to palm the ball behind for a corner, while Pelly Ruddock just failed to reach Dan Potts' enticing cross at full stretch.
The visitors brought on striker Charlie Austin and he had an opportunity straight away, scuffing a shot wide with his left foot.
The £4m signing from Southampton then had an even better chance, set up after some wonderful work from Diangana in beating two players, but crashed his close-range shot against the post.
Austin tried again from further out, hammering over the crossbar, but the Baggies had done enough to end Luton's unbeaten run in front of their home fans which stretched back to March 10, 2018.
Graeme Jones: "If you were looking at an ex-Premier League side it was us first half, and we couldn't sustain it, Slav threw on a bit of power, changed the game. Physically we didn't really come out at half time as I would have liked, but obviously that's part of the period we're in.
"We need to think about the positive aspect that we dominated the ball for the first 45 minutes and went in 1-0 up at half time. We spoke about all those things that we want to do, we dropped and gave West Brom the ball, with space, and West Brom didn't score two goals today, we gave them two goals.
Slaven Bilic: "We weren't bad in the first half, we were there, we were getting into situations, but we weren't brave enough to do it. The ball was not there, or the moment was not there, so we needed a bit of a spark and one change, and we did that.
"After that we gained confidence, they were knocked down of course, because they conceded a couple of goals in a period of the game where they were totally out-played. They were a bit groggy, like a boxer, and it's always possible that you can concede a goal, but we introduced a couple of players who are very good on the ball and we didn't have a serious avalanche, so a great three points."
