Stewart Downing was the man who helped take the pressure off James Tomkins with a fine assist for the winning goal at West Brom on Tuesday evening.

He told the official site: It was to get an assist for Tonks’ goal. He’s had a bit of stick after the Everton game but he responded in the best way possible by scoring the winning goal.”

And Downing explained his thinking for the all important strike saying: “During the game their defenders had been marking AC and Reidy but hadn’t been concentrating on Tonks so I put the ball in an area he could attack and thankfully he did the rest.

It was a big win  but we know we can still improve. We should have come out of the blocks better than we did and that is something we will look to do on Sunday against Swansea City this Sunday at the Boleyn Ground.