Fabian Hurzeler has explained why he brought in an MMA fighter to help Albion’s work on set-pieces.
And he added: “I don’t always want to be known as a club that is nice.”
The head coach said the tale of the tape at set-plays might work against his side again as they face Newcastle but they can still be clever in their ringcraft.
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He revealed: “We brought him in because I think we spoke a lot about set-pieces, about blocking, new trends in the Premier League. We tried to adapt to it as well.
“I don’t always want to be known as a club that is nice. In certain moments you have to be quite resilient in personal duels and therefore there are different ways of being resilient.
“There are different ways of using a block, different techniques to win one against one duels, especially at set-pieces.
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“And an MMA fighter always has one-against-one duels.
“He always needs to find a way to beat his opponent and therefore we try to get ideas from other sports and that was an idea we used in quite an effective way.
“As a club, we were never known as being so dominant at set-pieces.
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“We were never known as recruiting only for set-pieces, so therefore we need to find ways to be innovative.
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“We need to find ways that we can’t be beaten that easily when taller teams, taller opponents will face us, and that’s quite similar to what we face against Newcastle.
“A very physical team. We might not be that physical regarding our height but there are always ways you can defend and attack.”