ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE: Blackburn Rovers 2 West Brom 0:

SAM ALLARDYCE returned to Ewood Park for the first time since his controversial sacking as manager to see Blackburn Rovers clamber to seventh in the table.

Allardyce, working as a pundit for Sky Television, was generous in his assessment of the performance of his successor, Steve Kean. However, he could have pointed out the men who made the difference against an attractive and enterprising West Bromwich Albion side were men he had worked with at Ewood Park.

This was not a game Gabriel Tamas will recall with fondness. Four minutes from the interval, he rose to meet a running cross from David Dunn and, under slight pressure from Ivan Kalinic, headed it past his goalkeeper to give Blackburn an advantage they never looked like surrendering.

Two minutes after the restart, that advantage was doubled as Junior Hoilett, who had come of age in Blackburn’s previous home game, the 3-1 defeat of Liverpool that sealed Roy Hodgson’s fate, ran past Tamas and delivered a vicious, unstoppable shot into the roof of Boaz Myhill’s net.

Myhill, who had replaced Scott Carson last weekend after a run of five straight defeats, had more than justified manager Roberto Di Matteo’s faith with a string of fine first-half saves, most notably at full stretch from Roque Santa Cruz, making his return to Ewood Park with money that Blackburn’s owners had promised Allardyce but given to his first-team coach to spend.

Jermaine Jones, the American midfielder brought in on loan from Schalke, had a more painful debut: going for the same ball he and team-mate Gael Givet managed to wind each other. And Jason Roberts might have made it 3-0 had he not scooped the ball over the bar from close range.

Jones was, however, voted man of the match.

• Guardian Service