West Brom were dealt a hammer blow to their Premier League plight after they were hammered 5-1 by Crystal Palace at the Hawthorns this afternoon.

Roy Hodgson's return to his old stomping ground saw his side return to London with three points in the bag and plenty of goals with both Christian Benteke and Wilfried Zaha bagging a pair of braces in the second half.

The Baggies went behind to a Darnell Furlong own goal inside the opening ten minutes and by half-time, they were down to ten men too as Paul Tierney handed Matheus Pereira his marching orders following intervention from VAR.

On-loan Chelsea maestro Conor Gallagher had tied things up before then, though it wasn't enough with the Eagles in scintillating form after the break.

There will be many holes for Slaven Bilic to pick at in response to this weekend's embarrassment but the under-fire manager may have to start with his blind faith in £15m summer signing Karlan Grant.

The 23-year-old delivered yet another disasterclass for Albion, failing to score once again, meaning it is now just the one goal in seven starts since arriving from Huddersfield Town.

Grant simply wasn't in the game and rated out (6.8) among West Brom's worst performers, so it's no wonder that the Croatian boss hooked him just after the hour mark.

The £7.2m-rated flop was lightweight in his battles, winning just four of ten duels (40%) and that included zero in the air from four attempts, via SofaScore.

He also lost possession seven times, had just 29 touches and made only ten passes, a number that was surpassed by Baggies shot-stopper Sam Johnstone and given he spent half his time picking the ball out of his net, it only goes to show just how poor Grant was.

BirminghamLive reporter Joseph Chapman handed Grant a 4/10 and claimed: "Once again, it didn’t happen for Grant here. Much is depending on him, after the lengthy summer pursuit of him and the need for Albion’s attackers to address their goal problem, but again he was rather easily blunted."

As he says, it's not the first time that the Bilic signing has stunk the place out, so perhaps - if he's still in a job by then - the Albion chief should look to axe him in favour of Callum Robinson or Hal Robson-Kanu.

It may buy him some time and give the boot up the backside that Grant needs to truly kickstart his Baggies career.

AND in other news, Forget Pereira: £29k-p/w Baggies lightweight who won ONE duel massively let Bilic down...