West Brom did not enjoy the night they would have been hoping for on Friday night.
With the club’s recently announced new chairman, Shilen Patel, in attendance the Baggies will have been hoping to mark the start of a new era at The Hawthorns with victory over Southampton.
Ultimately though, that did not happen. Instead, a goal in either half from Ryan Fraser and David Brooks sealed a 2-0 win for the visitors.
Beyond the result, there was also frustration for the Baggies following the early sending off of manager Carlos Corberan.
Now it seems as though even his opposite number, Russell Martin, has sympathy for the Spaniard over that incident.
Carlos Corberan red card ‘nonsense’ – Russell Martin
Just six minutes into the game, Corberan appeared to believe that a pass along the touchline had run out of play.
The West Brom boss therefore went to pass the ball to his right-back, Darnell Furlong, for him to take a throw-in.
Corberan then attempt to pull out once he realised the ball had run back onto the pitch. Even so, referee Sam Allison still took the decision to show a red card to the Baggies manager.
That generated a great deal of anger from the home crowd, and it seems Martin did not agree with the decision either.
After the game, the Southampton boss was asked about the decision to send off his counterpart in the West Brom dugout.
Responding to that question, Martin was quoted by Birmingham World as saying: “It must be the rule that if you touch the ball you get sent off. If that’s the rule, it’s a crazy one.
“I didn’t know he was going to get sent off. I have nothing but respect for Carlos, I didn’t want to see him sent off. It’s nonsense”.
Due to that sending off, Corberan will now be banned from the touchline when West Brom travel to Home Park to face Plymouth Argyle on Tuesday night.
West Brom missed their manager on the touchline
From a technical point of view, the decision to send Corberan off was the right one.
The West Brom manager did obstruct play, which given he is not supposed to be on the pitch, so he is meant to be sent off for doing so.
However, it appears obvious that Corberan genuinely believed the ball had gone out of play when he touched it, and he was not trying to gain any advantage.
As a result, he can probably feel somewhat hard done by to have been given his marching orders at that point.
The Spaniard is always an animated figure on the touchline, and West Brom did seem to miss his absence on the touchline.
Southampton went on to dominate much of the first half, and the game as a whole. Whether things would have been different had Corberan remained on the touchline, is something we will never know.
With that in mind, this may be looked back on as a big ‘what if?’ moment for West Brom, come the end of the season.