Carlos Corberan delivers pointed message to Grady Diangana after West Brom cameo*

Grady Diangana has been challenged to maintain the same mind-set and approach to West Bromwich Albion matches in the remainder of this Championship season after his excellent cameo in Monday’s 2-2 draw with Watford helped to produce both goals in the Baggies’ comeback.

Diangana, who won the penalty which John Swift converted to earn Albion a battling point at Millwall on Good Friday, came up with the goods from the bench when he first teed up Brandon Thomas-Asante shortly after his introduction and then fed Darnell Furlong, who did the rest from distance in stoppage time.

Diangana is now just a single goal contribution away from matching his best ever seasonal tally at The Hawthorns, which happened to be his very first, under Slaven Bilic, while he was still registered as a West Ham United player. Indeed he has produced seven goals and seven assists in 30 appearances this term, an impressive return either side of his lengthy AFCON adventure with DRC.

“There’s no denying that Grady is maturing greatly as a person,” manager Carlos Corberan stated. When a player of his calibre competes with a competitive mentality, things don’t always go as planned. However, if you play with a competitive mentality and don’t let yourself drop levels that are appropriate for your abilities, the mentality implies that he will always perform two or three actions that demonstrate his level.

“Hopefully we can use this quality always, but it’s important with the mentality to keep insisting, to not resist or give up. In the previous game [at Millwall] he achieved the penalty, in the previous game he made a very good recovery very close to the box. On Monday he was involved in both goals. It’s important that he knows and realises that why he is making these things is a question of mentality more than quality.”

Albion collected two hard fought points over the Easter weekend, coming from behind in both matches to secure draws and to extend their unbeaten run in the process to eight league games. They’ve lost just once, that being against Southampton, since that fateful FA Cup tie against Wolves at the end of January. Albion actually increased their advantage in the play-offs on Monday, too, for Hull City, Coventry City, Norwich City and Preston North End all lost.

“It’s important to keep the unbeaten run, it’s true,” Corberan added. “It’s important that the team hasn’t lost in the last eight, and we’ve lost once in the last 12 games. We wanted the three points, it’s true. The results, more than comparing with the other teams, the results tell us about the level of the competition.

“In this competition you’re not going to have any type of easy game. We saw Leicester lose to Bristol. Rotherham – who everyone thought couldn’t compete – won their game too. Teams who are with us, looking for a play-off position, they couldn’t win their games. Always it’s difficult in the Championship. Not always are you going to add points, or play at the level you want.

“Ask my players – we want to play better. It’s why we work everyday. At the same time, we need to be realistic. That means we aren’t always going to win, always be better than the opponent, dominating and destroying them. You need to have the resilience, mentality and effort to compete and if you cannot be better than the opponent, don’t be worse.”