Alan Irvine revealed patience paid off for Albion during their derby victory against Aston Villa.
The Baggies had to wait until the 72nd minute to find an opener against ten-man Villa after Kieran Richardson was shown a straight red card in the 20th minute.
Albion enjoyed the lion’s share of possession against their Birmingham rivals with Stephane Sessegnon and Sebastian Pocognoli testing Villa goalkeeper Brad Guzan before the break.
Irvine’s side pressed again after the break and were rewarded when Gardner fired home from close range after Guzan had spilled Saido Berahino’s cross.
"I felt that as long as we kept making the right decisions, and as long as we kept our patience and played with intelligence that chances would come," the Scot said.
“That became more and more the case as it was going on.
“I think everybody assumes that is it going to be easy playing against 10 men, but you only have to go back a few weeks to when we played at Chelsea.
“We went down to 10 men for that kind of length of time and we didn’t concede, so I certainly didn’t see it as being a foregone conclusion that we would score.
“But I felt that if we kept doing the right things then our chances of scoring were certainly much higher.
“The crowd were fantastic. It didn’t surprise me to be honest. I know what derbies mean, I expected the ground to be rocking and it was."
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