Albion were humbled 6-0 at Chelsea on their return to the Premier League last week and were in need of a morale-boosting result at the Hawthorns on Saturday. That was achieved thanks to a winning goal from debutant Peter Odemwingie nine minutes from time, and Di Matteo felt it was nothing less than his team deserved. "We were looking for a reaction from the players and I think they responded very well," Di Matteo said. "It was a great performance and a deserved win. "We kept a clean sheet, we scored the goal and maybe could have scored a second one. "But you can't ask for more from your players - they played a very good game against a good team in Sunderland and now we have got points." The only dampener for the Baggies was an ankle injury sustained by Jerome Thomas, who was substituted at half-time and will be assessed over the next few days. Otherwise, it was a good day at the office for the newly-promoted side, with Odemwingie looking lively on his first appearance, just 24 hours after his transfer from Lokomotiv Moscow had been confirmed. The Nigeria forward was immediately in the thick of the action and missed the target when clean through with just eight minutes gone. He also saw a powerful strike rebound off Paulo Da Silva with quarter of an hour remaining, but made no mistake in the 81st minute as he collected James Morrison's pass and slid a low shot under Black Cats goalkeeper Simon Mignolet. Sunderland manager Steve Bruce lamented his team's inability to contain Odemwingie's threat. "The goal sums our afternoon up - the boy is in between us again," Bruce said. "We spoke about that at half-time because we had had a warning shot in the first five or 10 minutes. "But all afternoon the boy played in between our two centre-backs, we didn't pick him up and we have been punished for it." Bruce called on his players to develop some "backbone" for away fixtures after seeing the team struggle once again on the road as they did for much of last season. "We didn't prepare any differently and as the manager, you take the rap for it - have you prepared them right, have you done this or that right?" Bruce said. "But it was the same preparation as we did for (last week's home match against) Birmingham, and certainly we were a shadow of the team we see at the Stadium of Light. "We can't take it for granted that we are in this Premier League, because it is a tough, tough league. "Unless we start to have a bit of backbone about us away from home, then we are going to have afternoons like that too often."
