Slaven Bilic hailed Matheus Pereira as he celebrated his first home win as West Brom manager with a 3-2 victory over Blackburn.
Brazilian midfielder Pereira supplied assists for Matt Phillips and Jake Livermore in a thrilling first half dominated by the hosts after Bradley Dack gave Mowbray’s side the lead after just 26 seconds.
“He’s a player – I knew him from Germany last year and that’s why we wanted to sign him,” said the Baggies manager.
“I have many friends in Germany that I spoke to about him. He wanted to come and only to come here. He’s confident and comfortable on the ball and he likes to get in the pockets.
“He likes to pass the ball and get in the box but he doesn’t mind defending. He’s not a showman – he wants to penetrate and run into the box.
“Before this game maybe he had 90 minutes altogether and maybe had seven shots, which is good for a midfielder or a winger. But we expected that from him.”
Bilic was also delighted with the goals scored by Diangala and Phillips, adding: “They are great talents and they love the game, they stay behind after training and work hard.”
The Ewood Park boss was critical of referee Tony Harrington for ruling out Dack’s effort, saying: “I’m not sure the referee could see it, he was looking though nine players, I think. So he played safe by giving a free-kick.
“We kept giving them the ball back in the first half, but we kept it better in the second.
“I think in the second half we took the sting out of them by keeping the ball, which didn’t allow them to build up momentum.”
