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• Xisco Munoz vows to fight ‘until my last second’ at Sheffield Wednesday

  Xisco Munoz apologised to Sheffield Wednesday’s supporters and said he would give it “until my last second” after a 1-0 defeat at West Brom left the Sky Bet Championship’s bottom team with the worst start in their history.

  John Swift’s 13th-minute goal left the Owls with an eighth loss from the first 10 games of the Sky Bet Championship season, and they are already seven points adrift of the safety line.

  Manager Munoz, 43, who led Watford to the Premier League in 2020-21, has taken just two points all season and none have come outside Yorkshire. Wednesday are also without a goal in 312 minutes of football.

  “I understand the fans and I can only say sorry because it’s tough for everybody,” said the Spaniard.

  “But as a manager, I can say we will continue until my last second.

  “This is my life and I try to give my best to my players until my last minute.”

  Munoz suggested he is running out of options after trying different permutations.

  “We tried to change the formation and the players – I have used 24 or 25 players this season,” he added.

  “We can play 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 5-3-2 but right now, we’re not finding the solutions.”

  Munoz insisted he will keep persevering trying to find a winning formula.

  “We need to continue trying to find what is better for us, we need to find which players we can use for the next game, what can hurt the opponent and how we can make better of these situations,” added the Spaniard.

  “We played against a difficult style and a good team but the difference was nothing.”

  West Brom made it five games unbeaten, during which they have kept four clean sheets and climbed to fifth.

  Swift lashed home the only goal from six yards after Darnell Furlong played the ball down the right, Akin Famewo missed the chance to cut it out and Jed Wallace crossed low.

  But just after the goal, Wednesday’s Juan Delgado missed Ashley Fletcher’s cross from point-blank range, then Tyreeq Bakinson’s curling shot was clawed away by goalkeeper Alex Palmer.

  West Brom head coach Carlos Corberan saluted match-winner Swift, who scored his fifth goal of the season.

  “When a player of his quality is mentally ready to compete he can be the difference,” he said.

  Corberan admitted Albion found it hard going to find more goals.

  “You change the feeling and change the game when you score from the opportunities you have,” he said.

  “It was difficult to combat them from the set-pieces because they had a very physical team and when we won the second balls in the set-pieces, we couldn’t score the second goal to change the game.

  “After one second ball and one set-piece, it led to two big opportunities that led Alex (Palmer) to achieve the clean sheet and the three points.”

• Russell Martin hails Southampton’s ‘most complete’ performance against Stoke

  Russell Martin hopes Southampton can kick their Sky Bet Championship campaign on again after putting a bad run of form behind them with a 1-0 win over Stoke.

  Stuart Armstrong’s first-half free-kick proved the difference at the bet365 Stadium as Saints secured back-to-back victories, while the Potters slipped to their fifth loss in seven Championship games.

  The victory in the Potteries followed a 3-1 triumph versus Leeds last Saturday and the successive wins came after a four-game losing run, with Martin hoping their toughest moment of the season has been and gone.

  “I think it’s been two of our best performances, tonight I think was probably our best one, our most complete one,” he said.

  “I feel like we should have scored a couple more goals and we limited them to very little really, although they threw everything at us in the end.

  “To follow up the effort it took on Saturday to come here and such a tough place, a good team with a really excellent manager, to come here and do what we did, I’m really proud of the boys.

  “They’re playing for each other, they’re playing for us and the last two games will hopefully come at the end of the toughest moment we’ll have together.

  “I think every team has a tough period and ours has come early on after a good start and playing against a really difficult fixture schedule.

  “We found a bit of rhythm now and hopefully we can maintain that.”

  Alex Neil, while proud of Stoke’s efforts, voiced frustration at key refereeing decisions including Josh Laurent’s foul on Armstrong for the winning free-kick and Nathan Lowe being bundled over by Jan Bednarek after the break which he felt was a penalty.

  He said: “I think all you ever ask your team to do and individual players is to give everything they’ve got and I thought we got that.

  “I don’t think we can have any complaints in terms of the efforts of the players.

  “We got undone by one moment of quality where the ball ends up in the top corner.

  “I think certainly if you look at the foul that they get for their goal and you look at the foul in the box, if you’re going to compare both in terms of contact.

  “I think if you look at the two directives at the start of the season, one was based around soft contact for fouls and not buying into soft contact, which I thought for the first foul was really soft, and the other was was timewasting, and I didn’t think any of the directives this evening were carried out well enough in terms of the game at all.”

• Birmingham and Huddersfield managers condemn alleged racist abuse

  Mnager John Eustace condemned the alleged racist abuse aimed at midfielder Juninho Bacuna during Birmingham’s 4-1 victory over Huddersfield.

  The game was stopped late in the second half when referee Sam Allison went to speak to Eustace and Terriers counterpart Darren Moore after the issue was raised on the field of play.

  Speaking afterwards, with his side having won after two goals from Siriki Dembele and one each from Koji Miyoshi and Jordan James, Eustace made his feelings clear.

  “I believe that Bacuna was racially abused by one of our fans which is obviously disgusting,” he said.

  “It’s not something that we expect in society, let alone football. Birmingham is very proud of how diverse we are as a club and a city and there is certainly nowhere near any room for that at all.

  “It’s very disappointing. They have reported it, it’s bang out of order.”

  Moore said of the incident: “It’s a shame that it’s going to cloud the game tonight, because from Birmingham’s point of view it’s a good three points for them, but the incident is going to overshadow it.

  “The referee stopped the game, called both managers over, said there was an incident in the corner from a home spectator directed at the home player and though the home player didn’t want to report it, our player Tom Edwards heard it. Both players heard it clearly and it’s gone on report.

  “They’ve got video evidence and we will let the footballing authorities, referee and match officials get to the conclusion with it.

  “It’s not something we condone in the game, but it’s still there and we show our support.”

  Eustace was pleased with the performance of Dembele, who opened the scoring in the third minute and added his second in the 64th, sandwiching Miyoshi’s strike after 23 minutes.

  Michal Helik pulled one back in the second minute of stoppage time but James had the last word three minutes later.

  Eustace said: “The performance was good, it shows that when you are clinical it makes a big difference.

  “Performances over the last four or five games have been good, we haven’t got enough points from them and tonight we were very clinical in the final third, which was really pleasing.

  “Dems has come in, we have given him a platform to play, it has been very frustrating from everyone that he hasn’t been able to play over the last six or seven games.

  “The last two games I’ve had to get him the right minutes to be able to perform.

  “Tonight was always going to be a game I wanted to start him in, so it’s been frustrating for me to only use him as a bit-part player in the last few games, but there is a method to my madness.

  “We’ve had to protect him in the right way and I thought tonight he was outstanding.”

  Moore was far from happy with the Terriers’ display.

  “The performance obviously wasn’t the best in terms of what we have set in recent weeks,” he said.

  “We gave ourselves a mountain to climb in terms of the first goal. When I look at all four goals they were uncharacteristic of us. Goals three and four we were in possession of the ball, gave it away and got punished for it.

  “I didn’t think we were clean enough with the ball, I didn’t think our patterns were quite as effective tonight. It’s just a bad night.

  “We will learn from this and we will to move on. We suffer together as a group and we quickly apply it because we’ve got a quick turnaround.”