West Bromwich Albion's inconsistencies that had plagued the back-end of their 2023 reared their ugly head once again to start the new year, old habits dying hard away at Swansea City with the Baggies losing 1-0 in Wales.
Back-to-back 1-0 wins against Norwich City and Leeds United preceded this flat defeat on the road to the Swans, Carlos Corberan's West Midlands side needing to string together more consistent patches of wins over losses to strengthen their somewhat flimsy grasp on a playoff spot currently.
Still, with injuries piling up in recent weeks for Corberan to contend with, the Baggies will take fifth position in the Championship with 20 more games to go in the regular season.
The FA Cup third round is up next for the second-tier promotion hopefuls, with the Spanish manager in the Hawthorns dug-out plotting possible alterations ahead of the banana skin prospect of non-league Aldershot Town today.
Jayson Molumby is among those set to miss the upcoming contest through injury, with the former Brighton and Hove Albion man seemingly deserving of the drop anyway amid his woes last time out.
Jayson Molumby's game vs Swansea in numbers
The £17k-per-week Irish midfielder has found first-team minutes hard to come by this campaign, starting just 12 of West Brom's 26 games to date in the Championship.
Corberan won't be rushing to give him another start any time soon after this sub-par showing, the attacking midfielder huffing and puffing throughout but lacking any real incisiveness in forward positions for the Baggies.
Missing one big chance in the contest on top of completing zero successful dribbles, as per Sofascore, the 24-year-old was also weak when it came to winning his fair share of duels with zero duels won.
75 minutes played
42 touches
94% pass accuracy rate
5x possession lost
1 big chance missed
0 key passes
0 successful dribbles
0 duels won
6.5 match rating
Molumby did only misplace two passes in the game, but it was a quiet and timid display from the Irishman who looked scared to truly go full throttle in truth which saw BirminghamLive journalist Joe Chapman hand out a 5/10 rating to the Baggies number eight in his post-match musings.
Corberan could shake things up this time around by slotting in Brandon Thomas-Asante into an unconventional number ten berth, with the former Leeds United assistant already confirming that Daryl Dike is in line to start through the middle.
The players who could replace Jayson Molumby
John Swift would have been the obvious replacement for Molumby if the ex-Chelsea man was himself not also injured, with the 28-year-old's absence set to provide another unwanted headache for the Baggies boss.
With Jed Wallace another who is also set to be unavailable through injury – and with Adam Reach an option to replace Grady Diangana on the flanks, amid the latter man's AFCON commitments – the job may fall to Thomas-Asante to line up behind Dike as an unorthodox number ten.
West Brom's "pocket rocket" – as described by teammate Wallace – has only featured four times in an attacking midfield role and ten times as a second striker in his entire career to date, although with injuries and absences mounting, needs must as far as Corberan is concerned.
With eight goals to his name already this season in all competitions, the former Salford City star could run riot again against the non-league side, even if taking on a new role this afternoon.