Ryan Mason lauds Nat Phillips and Chris Mepham after West Brom grab win at Stoke

Manager Ryan Mason praised his newly-formed centre-back pairing of Nat Phillips and Chris Mepham after West Brom maintained their unbeaten record in the Championship with a 1-0 win at Stoke.

A first-half goal from Phillips proved to be the difference between the two sides as the Baggies made it three victories and one draw from their opening four games.

The former Liverpool player was joined at the heart of the Albion defence by Mepham, who signed from Bournemouth just two days ago.

Mason, who was serving a one-match touchline ban following his dismissal in the 1-1 draw with Portsmouth last Saturday, was full of praise for the duo following a hard-fought victory against a team that had picked up maximum points from their first three games.

“They’re both at great ages in terms of centre halves,” he said. “They’ve amassed an incredible amount of experience but then they have the quality as well.

“They know each other from Bournemouth, which was good.

“Chris literally came in yesterday, he trained a small tactical session and then went straight in.

“He showed incredible personality to do that and then to have Nat alongside him, I thought both of them led by example and gave us a real foundation to progress and win the game of football.”

Mason was particularly pleased with the clean sheet, his team’s second of the season.

“In this league we know the level of competition is so tough – you need to stand up, you need to fight, and we did that,” he added.

“I thought we defended our box incredibly well with our two centre-backs, our defenders.

“I thought the work-rate of the team was excellent to nullify them into maybe only a couple of real chances.

“But then within that I think they showed a personality.

“I thought in the first half we had some really good moments. In the second half, on the break, I thought we had a few chances we created that could maybe have put the game to bed but we didn’t.

“To keep a clean sheet in this league is not easy, so I’m super happy.”

Defeat for Stoke saw them lose top spot after three successive wins.

“I think the difference was the fact they, in possession and out of possession, dropped deeper,” boss Mark Robins said.

“They came after us initially but they got back in. They worked their socks off, so they deserve an awful lot of credit as well, while we were a little bit ponderous.

“In the first half, we were a little bit better in terms of trying get the ball forward and move the ball.

“You can’t take too many touches for a start so you’ve got to remain disciplined as to how we want to play and how we usually play.

“But also, within that, you’ve got players that are at various levels and at various standards and during today’s game you see people start to tire.

“They’re being asked to do a lot of work and it’s game four.

“At the end of the month some of them have got to go off and do some international work now and some of them will get some rest and train.”