JIMMY Floyd Hasselbaink celebrated the anniversary of his return to the Pirelli Stadium with a resounding 4-1 victory over Crewe.
Goals from Harry Chapman, John Brayford, Kane Hemmings and Daniel Jebbision gave the Brewers a flying start to 2022.
Hasselbaink was delighted with the 4-1 win.
He said: “It was a good performance and in the first 70 minutes it was energetic. We started really well and for once from a transition finished it off and made it 1-0. They scored a good goal, a great strike and sometimes you just have to clap your hands and say, ‘well done’. But we didn’t let that affect us, we kept on going and we kept on working and forced them to defend.
“The majority of the time we created chances and Kane scored a wonder goal. But he had more opportunities to score and that’s the good thing about today - that we created a lot of chances.
“I always say that we will take any goal and it doesn’t matter how they go in but there were a lot of good finishes today and some willing work.”
It was Albion’s first game since December 11 after Covid cases in the squad and the manager says that had an impact.
“The last 25 minutes we dropped off physically and it’s clear that there is some catch up work to be done but overall we are very pleased with the result. We could see Covid had hit us in that last 25 minutes but the commitment from the boys was very good.”
A year ago, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink re-joined the Brewers and watched from the stand as his new charges lost 5-1 at home to Oxford. Twelve months on it was a 4-1 success in very different circumstances.
Hasselbaink said: “We have come a long way. We have taken some big steps but hopefully there are some more big steps for us to make as well. We are hungry and we know we are in a process of getting us to be a really good side and we don’t want to be in that position again that we were a year ago.”