Sam Allardyce’s reign at West Brom got off to a miserable start as the 10-man Baggies slumped to a wretched defeat against Aston Villa.
Anwar El Ghazi’s double and Bertrand Traore’s sublime strike earned the visitors a dominant 3-0 derby win.
Jake Livermore’s first-half dismissal for a reckless challenge on Jack Grealish – upgraded from a yellow card after a VAR review – added to the nightmare for Allardyce.
Second-bottom Albion have just seven points – no Premier League team has had fewer than eight points after 14 matches and avoided the drop.
Villa climbed to ninth, three points behind the top five with two games in hand, after their deserved victory.
Dean Smith’s side have recovered from four defeats in five to win at Wolves and now The Hawthorns.
Yet there appears to be no quick recovery for Albion, who ripped up the blueprint built under Slaven Bilic when they turned to Allardyce.
The former England manager faces a monumental task to stop the Baggies slipping back to the Championship again.
And, after two and a half years out of management, it got harder when Vila struck after just five minutes.
The hosts were guilty of switching off and Traore was given too much time to hang a far-post cross for El Ghazi, who lost Darnell Furlong to finish from close range.
Albion never settled, with John McGinn firing over and Ollie Watkins nodding wide in a comfortable opening 25 minutes for the visitors.
The hosts lacked cohesion and while Villa were far from fluid they were happy to let the Baggies play in front of them.
Albion never looked like they would hit back and Allardyce’s night got worse when Livermore was dismissed eight minutes before the break.
The midfielder launched into a reckless lunge on Grealish, despite Albion having just won a free-kick, and Martin Atkinson initially showed him a yellow card.
VAR intervened and the referee checked his monitor before upgrading the card to a straight red.
Livermore had been off the ground and the decision was correct but Villa’s Kortney Hause was fortunate to escape with only a yellow card soon after despite planting his studs on Grady Diangana’s ankle.
Villa shrugged off the controversy to push for a second and Sam Johnstone gathered Grealish’s drive before McGinn headed wide after the break.
They thought they had found it with 19 minutes left when Watkins turned in Matty Cash’s cross, only for the striker to be ruled marginally offside.
Johnstone’s fine stop denied El Ghazi but he could only watch when Traore did seal the game with six minutes left, the forward passing the ball into the corner from the edge of the box.
El Ghazi then made it 3-0 from the penalty spot with two minutes remaining after Semi Ajayi’s clumsy foul on Grealish and there was still time for Johnstone to deny the midfielder a hat-trick, turning his sharp shot over.
Somewhere Phil Kearns is having an absolute meltdown about the unfairness of it all…
Great to see Jaguares win, hope they can follow up next week.
Argentina are 50-1 for the world cup! Insane odds given how well the Jaguares are going. Plus they always underperform in the Rugby Championship cos of the distances they have to travel. Given Ireland are 5-1, this seems pretty long for the Argies.
@Farzad Saadat: Pool C will see a big faller at the 1st. France, England and Argentina will be interesting. You’d think France could be the one to miss out but they’ve been ruthless with their squad selection, brought in O’Gara and you only have to look at 2011 when they had no chance and made the final. England could find themselves in a similar fate to 2015, after a great start under Jones they had an awful run of loses. Argentina always peak at world cup time. Exciting!
@RabidHorizon: Did they bring in O’Gara in the end? I thought that was all just rumours in the end
@Eddie Hekenui: No they didn’t in the end
@Ciaran Twomey: Cheers. Thought I might’ve missed the news he’d taken a role with them.
@Farzad Saadat: Madness considering they have knocked us out of 3 of the last 5 RWCs.
@RabidHorizon: they didn’t bring in O’Gara
@RabidHorizon: France brought in much better coaches than O’Gara, they should get a real boost – Labit and Galthié – they picked the right squad, too. I think England could be the team to miss out..
Brumbies should never have made it to a semi. Awful team but get lucky because of how weak their conference is.
@#JUSTICE4NOEL:
Aussie Rugby is in a bad place right now.
Unreal for the sport!! Makes the competition a whole lot more competitive! Will be interesting to see how far Argentina go at the WC.
@Aaron Tynan: Further than us, I fear.
@Bluepoolroad: draw kinder to them I think than Ireland – SA or NZ is a tough 1/4
The second semi just finished. Cracking game. 30-26 crusaders.
That jaguares kit is lovely
@Eoin Murphy: i wonder where one could buy it?
@Tony Stack: https://www.elverys.ie/elverys/en/search?text=jaguares
Great. When Argentina played in the November series against Ireland. Which i went too. It was the Jaguares team.
Jags play flat and pass wonderfully, it’s great to watch. The crowd was brilliant too.
I think the Crusaders will have too much for them at home, but I’d love to see the Jags win it.
Where’s the final taking place?
@Bluepoolroad: crusaders ground
@Bluepoolroad: Crusaders home stadium in Christchurch, super rugby needs to start playing them in neutral venues, even if it’s in the higher ranked clubs home country. Home stadium advantage is a bit much for a final.
@Con Al: The problem is distances. Say Cape Town was this year’s venue, how many Jaguares and Crusaders supporters are going to make it at a weeks notice? Stadium would be near empty. At least in the current system, one set of supporters see the final and home advantage is based on merit earned during the season. Not perfect, but understandable system