Sam Allardyce And Rafa Benitez
Sam Allardyce has urged Chelsea loanee, Conor Gallagher, to continue raising his game in the face of fresh midfield competition at West Brom.
Sam Allardyce said: “There comes a time when you’re dealing in the January market where new players give the players who are already here an impetus and a boost. ‘I don’t want this guy taking my position, so I must play better.’ Those guys have arrived because we haven’t achieved what we wanted to achieve, and that’s been more positive results and points on the board. You as a manager, when you have a short window, you have to try and rectify that by bringing in players to challenge the players already here to play better – and for them to show how good they are as players to try and achieve more results. Competition for places, yes, but it’s been competition for places the whole way along. If you consistently play well, you keep your position. If that doesn’t happen, as a manager you can’t give that player a lot of time to good. They have to instantly, or within two matches, show they can give a consistent performance. What’s happened with Conor is that, for a young man, I think his performances have been pretty consistent. I hope that grows and gets better and better. What I’ve liked to see from him, in terms of the pressure of defeats that have been happening, is that it doesn’t seem to be affecting him much and he still tries to play as best he possibly can. Obviously there is room for everybody to improve, and him, but maybe with the help of the new players he can get even better. All of the players, certainly, at the moment have to improve their performances on a more consistent basis but hopefully the new players will help.”
Midfielder Gallagher, 21, has been one of Albion’s better players in a pretty miserable campaign thus far, but his form most recently has suffered under Allardyce. Indeed he’s been in and out of the side of late, and his place in the Baggies’ starting line-up faces a fresh threat after the arrivals of Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Okay Yokuslu. Ahead of the welcoming of Manchester United to The Hawthorns this Sunday, Allardyce believes that Gallagher can benefit from the new signings as their involvement will require him to improve his performance levels further.
