Sam Allardyce And Rafa Benitez
Sam Allardyce insists he won’t be ‘throwing caution to the wind’ in West Brom’s remaining Premier League matches – despite their relegation fate already being sealed.
Sam Allardyce said
“It will be based on what they show in training. We want to pick the team that has the best opportunity to win against Liverpool, West Ham and Leeds. I am going to pick the best – I will keep in mind there are some players who are desperate to get a chance, but it may only be one or two maximum because I’m not just going to throw caution to the wind. I want to go out and perform to our highest level. I think we have performed at a very consistent level over the last two or three months, but we have converted those consistent performances into enough wins. So I’m not over-struck on changing the team too much.”
“It will be based on what they show in training. We want to pick the team that has the best opportunity to win against Liverpool, West Ham and Leeds. I am going to pick the best – I will keep in mind there are some players who are desperate to get a chance, but it may only be one or two maximum because I’m not just going to throw caution to the wind. I want to go out and perform to our highest level. I think we have performed at a very consistent level over the last two or three months, but we have converted those consistent performances into enough wins. So I’m not over-struck on changing the team too much.”Liverpool visit this weekend, and while Albion and Allardyce will be aiming for victories in each of their remaining matches, the following clash with West Ham – next Wednesday evening – is the one that is Allardyce’s priority. The bout with his former club will be played out in front of 10,000 home supporters, as fans return for the first time in more than 14 months to B71. To give them something to shout about is what would please Allardyce most from an otherwise pretty dreary situation.
Sam Allardyce said “I’d like to win them all, but if I’m to win one more game I’d like it to be against West Ham because the fans will be there to cheer us on. I’ve often thought about what the home fans might have done for us in our position. I think they could have been the extra man when we needed them. I think they could have helped us to win some games that we were drawing and could have won, particularly at The Hawthorns. Can we finish the season as strong as we can? Can we win as many games as we can? We have got difficult games, Liverpool at home…but if there is one certain game we want to win it’s West Ham at home with the fans coming back. We have three difficult games but we want to try and win as many games as they can. They have got to stay professional to do their job right to the very end.”
Albion’s 3-1 defeat to Arsenal on Monday confirmed that they’d be playing Championship football again next term, with three league games still to be played out. They host Liverpool and West Ham at The Hawthorns in the next week, before they make for Leeds United on the final day of the campaign. Little has been seen of a host of first-team players in recent weeks and months; Jake Livermore, Romaine Sawyers, Grady Diangana and Karlan Grant have all had to make do with sporadic minutes here and there, or not at all. Allardyce, though, won’t be making wholesale changes for the sake of it and has challenged those players to earn their game time on the training pitch in the week.
