Tony Mowbray celebrated a glorious homecoming and hailed an impressive performance by Grady Diangana as West Brom thrashed Portsmouth 5-1 in Saturday’s Sky Bet Championship clash at The Hawthorns.
Former West Ham winger Diangana, 26, who is out of contract this summer, scored twice and made another two for the hosts.
It was a nightmare for Portsmouth goalkeeper Nicolas Schmid, who gifted goals for Alex Mowatt and Diangana before Jed Wallace – and Diangana again – made it 4-0 ahead of half-time.
John Swift scored the fifth in the 56th minute in Albion’s most emphatic win since hammering Swansea by the same scoreline in December 2019.
That landslide margin lifted the Baggies back into fifth in the table to sit above Middlesbrough on goal difference.
Mowbray’s last win at The Hawthorns in charge of Albion was 5,740 days ago – on May 9, 2009 – as they won 3-1 against Wigan.
“I’m really happy Grady’s here and I hope we inspire him to stay,” said head coach Mowbray, 61.
“I’d like to keep him because he’s my type of footballer and he wants to learn everything he can to help the team.
“There’s a good marriage for him here if he understands his role. He’s scored some goals and he’s enjoying his football.
“I had a one-to-one with him this week and I didn’t realise how articulate he is – he speaks four or five languages.
“He’s always been a player who has caused opposition problems – he can dance on the ball and slip strikers in, or score himself.”
Mowbray has urged Albion to become more free flowing while keeping the solid base they had under his predecessor Carlos Corberan.
“We said we need to score 60 or 70 goals because that’s what promoted teams do. We had 33 before today and we took that on board,” he added.
“It’s really important we don’t throw two years of being a very well-coached team out of the window.
“We want to use the best bits and play open, attacking football.”
Albion took a 25th-minute lead when Schmid allowed Mowatt’s 25-yard drive to squirm through his hands.
Seven minutes later Schmid spilled Mikey Johnston’s routine shot, allowing Diangana to finish.
Diangana then spun Andre Dozzell on halfway to feed former Pompey winger Jed Wallace, who coolly sidefooted the ball home in the 37th minute.
Diangana punished a woeful attempt at an offside trap for the fourth goal, racing onto Mason Holgate’s through ball before beating Schmid in the 44th minute.
Swift made it 5-0 after 56 minutes with a fierce slightly-deflected shot on its way into the roof of the net from 12 yards from Johnston’s pull back.
Substitute Thomas Waddingham scored a debut consolation in the third minute of second-half stoppage-time at the second attempt, with virtually the last kick.
Portsmouth head coach John Mousinho backed Schmid to bounce back from his blunders.
“Nicolas has been up there as one of our two or three top players this season,” he said. “I’ve got no issues with him – he’s really mentally strong.
“Nicolas was not the problem. He will be disappointed with the first goal but the players in front of him have to do better.
“I didn’t see the second goal go in but we lost a challenge when two players went to their winger close to the halfway line.”
Mousinho’s decision to rest five players after two wins backfired as they crashed to a seventh-consecutive away defeat.
“We had to freshen things up,” said Mousinho. “The schedule is brutal for us and the workload on the players has been too much, especially at the top end of the pitch.
“I would make the same decisions again. If I had played those five, we might have had two or three injuries.”
