James Morrison praised his players for their showing at Shrewsbury as Albion continued their preparations for the new campaign with a 4-1 win in Shropshire on Saturday.
The head coach said he had worked the players hard in training throughout the week - leaving them with “fatigue in the legs” before the trip to Croud Meadow.
But he was left delighted by his team’s performance as goals from Jimmy-Jay Morgan (2), Harry Whitwell and Aune Heggebø helped the Baggies - backed by more than 3,000 travelling fans - to a comprehensive victory.
“I’m really happy with the performance,” said Morrison. “The opposition gave us a different game than I was expecting.
“We had to be professional, and I was really pleased with that. We went to the end of the game doing the right things.
“We played some nice football - we kept doing the right stuff and the right actions all the time.
“I’ve said from day one that I wanted us to get better on the ball. And you can see that coming out, which as a coach is pleasing. The lads are buying into it and there were some good performances today.
“It’s just part of the process. Another game, a lot of the lads got close to 90 minutes, which I wanted. So we’ll kick on now, because we’re getting close to the start of the season.
“If we want to achieve what we are going to set out to, then we know we need to score more goals and be more of a threat. We certainly had that today and it was pleasing for the goal scorers.
“People are getting fitter, understanding how we want to play in certain situations, and we’re putting a lot of work into them on the training pitch.
“This week has been challenging in terms of that. We were going into this game with a lot of fatigue in the legs, so the lads stuck with it. You could probably hear me shouting from the touchline to keep going until the end, and that was pleasing to see.
“The support was great at the back end of last season, like it is always. I don’t have to ask too much from them, because I know they’ll always be there supporting.
“It’s up to us to put performances on the pitch that they can be proud of. They came out in numbers again today, so I thank them. Keep supporting us.”
