Alan Pardew was at least able to celebrate winning for the first time as West Brom manager, but he has pledged to get to the bottom of how Hal Robson-Kanu ended up taking, and missing, a first-half penalty.
The Welsh international came on as a 10th-minute substitute for the injured Kieran Gibbs and stepped ahead of Salomón Rondón and Jay Rodriguez to take the 42nd-minute spot kick. His timed effort was easily saved by the Exeter goalkeeper Christy Pym, and instead of making it 3-0, his error ensured the game remained in the balance.
A minute later, Exeter got their best chance of the game, but the best Jayden Stockley could do was hit the post with an open net in front of him following a fumble by Ben Foster.
“That’s the FA Cup for you in those two minutes – we missed a penalty and they then go up the other end and could have got a goal on the stroke of half-time,” said Pardew after the game. “It was fortunate for us that it hit the post and it served as a good warning that we needed to focus for 90 minutes because it could have turned out not be so comfortable. The penalty didn’t affect the game, but it could have.
“There were a couple of little moments there that we will have to make sure never happen again. There will be words this week in the nicest possible way.
“There wasn’t any whooping or jumping around, it was just a professional job and we were expected to win,” he added. “The most important thing was that we won and it didn’t matter in which manner.”
After Rondón scored after a mere 70 seconds, there should have been a hatful more. The striker had a second goal ruled out for offside in the 26th minute (as did Ahmed Hegazi early in the second half), and then Robson-Kanu missed the penalty.
By then, though, the Baggies had doubled their lead thanks to a Jay Rodriguez prod home from five yards after home centre backs Troy Archibald-Henville and Dan Seaborne had made a hash of clearing in front of goal.
Ben Foster had only one difficult moment to deal with in the West Brom goal when he fumbled a Liam McAlinden cross and presented Stockley with an open goal. He not only missed, but then blasted a free-kick wide of the target in the second half to allow West Brom to leave with their first victory since 22 August.
