Analysis: West Brom need to match Wigan's inventiveness and intensity away from home

Or is it part of a wider problem that needs to be fixed if Albion are to emerge from the pack and win promotion?

The DW Stadium is a tough place to go, Wigan are a tough cookie to crack, with a tough Cookie in charge.

They have won five and drawn two of their seven home games this season, kept 20 clean sheets in their last 28 home matches in the league, and not lost at this ground in the league since February.

The Baggies, it's worth remembering, are still just one point off the top, and this was their first defeat in eight. Alarm bells should hardly be ringing.

But Paul Cook may have found the blueprint to play against Albion this season, a blueprint hinted at on the opening day by Bolton, and then developed on that miserable Friday night at the Riverside by Tony Pulis.

Darren Moore wants his team to dictate play this season, to control games as much as possible.

But even though Albion had more possession than their hosts on Saturday, it was Cook's tactically astute Wigan side who controlled this game from start to finish.

They dictated the terms of how it would be played, and they were rarely troubled by the arsenal of Albion's attacking talent.

Whenever it looked like the Baggies had grabbed a foothold in the game, whenever they started to zip the ball around with more purpose, Wigan came roaring back again with more intensity, and harder pressing.

They broke up play, and dragged the game down to a battlefield scrap. Instead of rising above it, Albion became frustrated and played into their hands.

By the end of the match, six of the nine yellow cards handed out were given to the men in yellow and green who had seen the red mist descend.

Off the ball, the Latics were superb, retreating to a back four and either sitting deep in a resolute 4-4-1-1 the Baggies couldn't break down or surging up the pitch in a 4-3-3 that pressed Albion's defenders in possession.

As a team they were rocking back and forth together, and it worked, forcing the much-maligned back three into plenty of errors.

If Kyle Bartley and Jake Livermore are trying Cruyff-turns on the touchline because they're being swarmed, there's only one team who should be pleased about that, there's only one team whose gameplan is working.

Then, when Wigan were on the ball, they sent right-back Reece James foraging up the pitch as far as possible to pin Kieran Gibbs back and switched to a back three.

It was a swivelling defence executed brilliantly, and it's complexities laid bare the predictability of Albion's own system.

When they are firing on all cylinders, this 3-4-1-2 formation is, at its best, a fluid beast with five attackers moving in tandem and five defenders (if you include the two central midfielders) zipping the ball through the press.

But we only saw that potential for a 10-minute spell in the second half at Wigan. And even then, Cook's men held their visitors at arm's length, refused to let them create anything.

Cook was more inventive with his system and it made Moore's team look formulaic and predictable. At times the Baggies simply had no answer to their host's endeavour.

Dwight Gayle was barely in the game, Jay Rodriguez cut an increasingly frustrated figure up top, Chris Brunt and Jake Livermore got dragged into a midfield battleground.

The one player who stayed above it, who looked capable of producing a moment of magic, was Harvey Barnes.

He's adamant he should have won a penalty when the scores were level. On another day, with another referee, perhaps the Baggies grind out the sort of 1-0 win titles are built on.

So there are fine margins at play here, but a result like this away from home has been coming, and anyway, Wigan nearly had their own penalty to take.

Losing at the DW Stadium is no disgrace. Forget the 2018 Super League champions, it is a formidable fortress for the town's football team too.

But what Cook proved on Saturday is that, in order to win this league, the Baggies need to be more adaptable, particularly away from home.

There is a growing concern that Albion lack a Plan B for games like this – and while their philosophy to play out from the back is admirable, sticking to it dogmatically in such circumstances is costing them on the road.

There's no escaping the difference between home and away form. Albion have won five in a row in the league at The Hawthorns, but only won two out of seven on the road.

Perhaps the 3-4-1-2 needs adapting away from the Black Country, or at least tweaking, because it's not having the same desired effect.

A lack of consistency is not a unique phenomenon for the Baggies, who lest we forget, had won four of the previous five.

Six of the top seven going into the weekend lost. Nine points separate first to 18th.

In the Premier League, they talk about the big six. Perhaps the Championship has the big 18.

This league is wide open, aching for a team to stand up and take it by the scruff of the neck.

Over the past few weeks Albion looked like they were threatening to do just that, but now doubt will creep in.

Defeat will always be a set-back, but how this team responds to it is key.

Their next two games this week are in the friendlier environs of The Hawthorns, but they are also against two other teams in the top seven.

Derby County and Blackburn Rovers will provide tests just as stern as Wigan, albeit on arguably more favourable terms.

Frank Lampard and Tony Mowbray are unlikely to set up as physically as Cook, they may play the game Moore wants to play. Or they may look at the blueprint Cook laid out for them.

There have been similarities to all three of Albion's defeats this season. Perhaps messrs Parkinson, Cook and Pulis have shown the way to get at this side.

Get in their faces, ruffle their feathers, don't let them play. If the Baggies want to go up, they will need to learn how to deal with that sort of pressure, and they will need a Plan B for these sort of off-days.