Albion Defeats Bologna 1-0: Hinshelwood's Winning Goal

Albion went into their final warm-up game without two of their headline wingers – and walked out with another win and a new route to goal.

Jack Hinshelwood struck on 59 minutes to edge a 1-0 victory over Bologna at the Amex, capping a second-half spell in which Albion finally tore into the spaces out wide that had been locked to them before the break.

For 45 minutes, the game drifted. Albion saw plenty of the ball but moved it too slowly, too predictably. Bologna were comfortable, the home side short of ideas and short of punch.

Then the flanks came alive.

Georginio Rutter set the tone. Nominally the No.9, often the false nine, he refused to stay central. He hugged the left touchline, spun away from markers, and kept dragging defenders into places they did not want to go. One such move opened the match.

Rutter worked hard to keep possession on the left, then drove infield and was fouled. Play rolled on, and his low ball across the face of goal skipped through the six-yard box. Diego Gomez left it, nobody in blue and white could apply the finish, and it seemed the chance had gone.

Then Mats Wieffer arrived.

Charging onto the ball at the edge of the box, Wieffer swept a low effort towards goal – more like a disguised pass than a clean strike. Hinshelwood had timed his run, darting in behind and turning the ball home while glancing across for an offside flag that never came.

One moment, a low-key friendly. The next, Albion suddenly stretching Bologna on both sides of the pitch.

The full-backs, usually Ferdi Kadioglu and Gomez, began to find space behind their opposite numbers. Wieffer clipped a clever pass to release Gomez down the right, the cut-back picking out Hinshelwood again, this time leaning back and blazing over after his earlier composure.

Gomez stayed busy. He later rolled a ball into Kadioglu, who stepped inside and cracked a shot against the post, underlining how dangerous those wide combinations had become.

That production in wide areas carried extra significance. Yakuba Minteh had joined Kaoru Mitoma on the injury list, stripping Albion of two natural wing threats. The question was obvious: where would the width come from?

Maxim De Cuyper offered one answer.

Starting on the left and dovetailing with Kadioglu, the Belgian repeatedly advanced from deep, providing Albion’s first two shots of the game. Both efforts drew saves from Lukasz Skorupski, but they hinted at a different sort of threat – a full-back stepping up as a de facto winger.

De Cuyper also slipped a smart pass into Kadioglu in a dangerous pocket, while Hinshelwood forced another save with a volley after sharp service from Olivier Boscagli. The patterns were neat, the approach play tidy. The cutting edge, before half-time, was not.

That changed as soon as the second half began. The tempo rose, challenges sharpened, and both sides started to carry real menace.

An expected flurry of substitutions broke the game up but also gave Albion more orthodox width. Ibrahim Osman and Zadok Yohanna came on and immediately looked direct, eager to run at defenders and stretch the pitch even further.

Bologna, for their part, were not simply sparring partners. Nicolo Carbiaghi twice threatened to spoil Albion’s clean-sheet run, once in each half, but Bart Verbruggen answered both questions with sharp saves to preserve the 1-0 scoreline.

In front of him, the Dutch goalkeeper again had solid protection. Luka Vuskovic and Boscagli formed a composed pairing in the first half, reading danger well and keeping Bologna largely at arm’s length.

Yet the enduring takeaway from this final friendly was not at centre-back. It was what happened on the left.

With Mitoma out and Minteh sidelined, Albion will need invention rather than pure pace in those channels. De Cuyper, stepping high and linking with Kadioglu, looked ready to shoulder that responsibility, offering a different kind of menace from full-back.

Pre-season is over. The Tromso trip awaits. And as Albion board the plane, they do so knowing that even without their star wingers, the wide areas might still be where this team does its most important work.