All of the goals, two of them from confidently converted penalties, came in a twenty-two minute spell.
But that was the end of the goal-fest leaving coach David Platt to stress that all the right things had been said at the break.
“It was one of those game where you don’t need half-time because you know that no matter how much you try to tell the players to go out and build on what they have done; they know the game is effectively closed down,” he smiled.
“You tell them to focus again and come out with all the clichés like ‘it is 0-0 now let’s go out and win the second half’, ‘goal difference is important’, ‘let’s go and get more’ but human nature means players take the foot off the pedal. They perhaps don’t close down like they should or push on when they should.
“I am sure that the message in the West Brom dressing room was to have a real go and that is what they did. You saw what happened at St James Park where Newcastle came back from four down so I’d sooner be in our dressing room than Arsenal’s at 5pm.”
Platt revealed that the Blues had repeated tactics used in the reverse fixture in the Midlands.
“We pushed players on well in the first half. When we played at the Hawthorns earlier in the season our full backs played virtually in their half right up until the sending off of Mario Balotelli,” he declared.
“The manager re-enforced that before the game and we did it well which allowed Carlos Tevez and David Silva to find pockets of space and exploit it. It was almost like having a numerical advantage going forward.
“Carlos has hit the post as well in the first half and we could have had more than three. As pleased as we were with the first half we were disappointed that we didn’t add to it in the second when there was a bit of disappointment.
“The three points were vital that is the be-all and end-all. The clean sheet [the only one in the Premier League on Saturday] is a bonus.
“The defenders and Joe Hart go out to get a clean sheet and that’s what we have got. It was our twelfth of the season which is the best in the Premier League.”
