Steve Clarke believes Albion’s late arrival may have helped the Baggies achieve their first ‘double’ of the season after yesterday’s 2-1 victory over QPR.
Albion’s coach was severely delayed during its journey to Loftus Road after Boxing Day traffic chaos in west London.
When Albion did finally arrive at the ground goals from Chris Brunt and an own goal from Robert Green ensured back to back victories over the Christmas period.
“We did point out to the Premier League that if there was going to be traffic chaos in another part of London for Arsenal against West Ham, there might be traffic chaos in West London with the shopping centre and getting to Loftus Road, but they said we had to play,” said the head coach.
“It took us an hour to travel five miles from our hotel to the stadium!
“But the preparation for the game had already been done at the team meeting at the hotel and my players know their jobs. They knew what they had to do.
“The kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes which helped us a little bit.
“It certainly didn’t affect our performance and it wasn’t a big issue.”
The victory however, did come at a cost with Jonas Olsson and Youssouf Mulumbu both limping towards the end of the game and Goran Popov forced off with an injury.
Clarke added: “We finished the game hanging on a little bit as both Jonas and Youssouf had little niggles.
“It’s too early to say what their injuries are, or how bad they are, but we’ll get them in tomorrow, have a look at them and begin preparing for our trip to Old Trafford on Saturday.”
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