Carlos Corberan asked for 'resilience and character' from West Brom in Coventry City win

Goals from Grady Diangana and Brandon Thomas-Asante inflicted a first home defeat to the season on Mark Robins' side, who despite their lowly position of 20th look sharp and caused the visitors problems.

But Albion made it seven points from nine as they continue to dig deep and gain momentum in the absence of several key attackers. Key to that run is yet another clean sheet, the latest in a run of sixth shutouts in seven for Alex Palmer and Albion's impressive rearguard.

It was the two personality traits, though, that most pleased Corberan as Albion put themselves back in the top six.

"There were two emotional aspects that I was talking with the players before the game that I told the players were key today to achieve something.

"The first thing was resilience and the second was personality," Corberan said. "Resilience to defend and accept the difficulty as a part of the game, and to never give up with the difficulty, just to face it, accept it and show your best to the difficulty.

"And the second, personality, to play, attack and move them to a part of the game where they can suffer more, that is defence, because they are an excellent team in attack and you need to move them more in defence to hurt them.

"It's clear we had to be more resilient tonight and we were. There were moments we needed to attack more, to be more brave, to not just play long, to try to play short and change the feeling in the game with attacks. But at the same time I value all the effort and commitment when we had to defend."

While resilient Albion were ruthless in both penalty areas, Coventry were wasteful in front of goal with Haji Wright the main culprit, spurning at least two clear chances. Sky Blues goalkeeper Ben Wilson dropped the opening goal at the feet of Diangana, who reacted superbly to finish.

There was a stroke of luck Corberan may argue Albion have merited this season as replays showed Thomas-Asante fractions offside for the second goal after being wonderfully fed by Matt Phillips.

The head coach added of the marginal incident: “For the second goal, if it’s not clear, it’s difficult to see. VAR would make more sense.

“I hope it wasn’t offside because I want to win fairly."

The Spaniard is thrilled to see his patched-up side able to adapt to the circumstances of options thin on the ground. The bench in Coventry consisted of youngsters Caleb Taylor, Tom Fellows, Harry Whitwell and Reyes Cleary - the latter pair for the first time this season.

Corberan said: "This is one of the keys in the life, expectation in life never exists, you need to adapt. In this adaptation you need to show the best of you in every single moment.

"In the good moments and when the moment is challenging, that's why I'm very pleased to have the reward of three points for the level of effort and commitment the players put tonight.

"Always there are aspects to improve, in the first half we need to defend much better, the pockets and sides with the line of five, and we needed to attack more.

"In the second half we improved in the counter-attacks and in defence, still there are things we need to do better to grow as a team."