TONY Mowbray has paid tribute to Dean Kiely's professionalism following Scott Carson's elevation into Albion's first-team.

The England keeper played in goal for Albion in last Saturday's game at Arsenal, forcing Dean Kiely on to the subs' bench.

Kiely, aged 37, had been the club's undisputed No.1 for the last 18 months, but will play second fiddle to Carson for the forseeable future.

Baggies boss Mowbray admitted Kiely had responded well to the blow of losing his first-team place.

"It was a close call," said Mowbray, regarding his decision to opt for Carson.

TONY Mowbray has predicted a bright future for Leon Barnett after the young defender came through his first Premier League game with 'flying colours'.

The 22-year-old grew in confidence during the 1-0 defeat at Arsenal, enjoying the better of his exchanges with Emmanuel Adebayor.

Mowbray remains on the look-out for a new centre-half but feels Barnett is clearly capable of stepping up to the top flight and maintaining his early promising form,

"I thought Leon was a big positive," said Mowbray.

ARSENAL boss Arsene Wenger backed Albion's credentials to compete in the Premier League after praising them for not "crumbling" in their opening-day defeat at the Emirates.

Tony Mowbray admitted he feared the Baggies were in for a "good hiding" when debutant Samir Nasri opened the scoring after just four minutes of the Gunners' 1-0 victory yesterday.

But Wenger's words of comfort add weight to the Albion manager's unflinching belief that his team should be aiming for a mid-table finish rather than mere survival in the top flight.

"I believe they defended intelligently, they tried to play in a positive way, we expected them at some stage to crumble a little bit and they never did," said Wenger.

"They kept going until the last second of the game. They had fantastic spirit and a positive attitude towards the game. They were not dirty but they were resilient and well organised."

WEST Bromwich Albion boss Tony Mowbray insisted his side could take "a lot of positives" out of their 1-0 defeat at Arsenal.

He said: "We didn't get off to a great start with them scoring early in the game but they are a great side.

"But once we got a grip of the game we gave a decent account of ourselves, although they had about 20 opportunities and we probably only created one or two ourselves.

"We had a few problems down the right side and they capitalised on that, but once we sorted out the problems we performed a lot better.

"There are a lot of positives to take from the game - we don't go away hammered and go away believing we can compete in this league but there is plenty to work to do."

A DEBUT goal for Samir Nasri proved enough to give Arsenal a 1-0 win over new boys West Bromwich Albion on the opening day of the Barclays Premier League season at Emirates Stadium.

The £12million Frenchman netted after only four minutes as the Gunners dominated the first half.

However, it was a different story following the restart as last season's Coca-Cola Championship winners fought back and were unfortunate not to get something from the match.