Graham Potter hailed his game-changing substitutes as Albion came from a goal behind to win 2-1 at Burnley.
Having gone 1-0 down to James Tarkowski’s early goal, Albion responded twice in the space of eight second half minutes, as substitute Jakub Moder teed up Neal Maupay to equalise, before Pascal Gross’ pull-back was converted by Alexis Mac Allister, who had only been on the pitch for two minutes.
“The substitutes absolutely played their part,” Potter said. “It was a fantastic team performance, especially in the second half considering we got off to the worst possible start. Burnley made it difficult for us and we rode our luck a bit in the first half – the things they do well they did well and we suffered a little bit.
“But in the second half we controlled the game well and you have to do that here. In the end it’s a fantastic performance on the back of a challenging pre-season. I am really pleased for the boys.
“We had to defend to do at times. Getting the goal was important and we had some good attacks, better attacks in the second half.”
Tarkowski appeared to push Maupay as the England international opened the scoring, but the Albion head coach didn’t want to dwell on the decision too much.
“It looks like a push, but in the current climate where contact is being let go a bit more you can see why it’s given, the referee has made his decision and we have to get on with it.
“In the first half we caused our own problems a little bit and that doesn’t help when you’re playing against a team like Burnley.”
The three points mark a first opening day win since the 2019/20 season.
“It is the perfect start, absolutely – that’s what we’re here to do. We had to fight. it’s been challenging this pre-season, but credit to the players, they were fantastic.”