WEST BROMWICH: West Bromwich Albion beat Southampton 3-0 in convincing fashion in the Premier League on Monday as Sam Allardyce’s side look to salvage their top flight survival hopes in the home stretch of the season. West Brom, who beat Chelsea 5-2 last weekend, have won back-to-back games for the first time this season and the 19th-placed side are within eight points of the safety zone with seven games to go. “It was really important to back last week’s result up and make it two wins in a row,” West Brom forward Callum Robinson told BBC Sport. “The boss stressed we needed to go out tonight and get a win, the results didn’t go our way at the weekend. It (safety) is still far off but we will keep going until the end.” West Brom had an early goal controversially ruled out after Mbaye Diagne headed home before celebrations were cut short when the offside flag went up. However, VAR was unable to draw a conclusion and stuck with the on-field decision.
But West Brom were not to be denied in the first half and when Saints goalkeeper Fraser Forster brought down Matheus Pereira in the box, the Brazilian midfielder made no mistake in dispatching the penalty. West Brom doubled the lead three minutes later when Danny Ings’ sloppy back pass under pressure was intercepted by Diagne and the Senegalese striker crossed the ball to the back post where Phillips came sliding in find the back of the net. Southampton started to ask questions of West Brom in the second half but the home side scored a third goal against the run of play when Okay Yokuslu released Robinson down the middle and the Ireland international beat Forster with ease. The Saints had a chance to score a consolation goal in stoppage time when Moussa Djenepo was fouled in the box but Sam Johnstone denied James Ward-Prowse to keep his clean sheet intact.