Ryan Donk in frame for Middlesbrough game
DUTCH centre-back Ryan Donk is in line to make his Albion debut at Middlesbrough, although Tony Mowbray is quick to reassure Leon Barnett he has a bright future head of him at the club.
Donk has played just one reserve game and only made the bench against Villa due to Abdoulaye Meite getting injured in the warm-up.
But such was Barnett’s shocker against John Carew that Mowbray admits Donk, signed on loan from AZ Alkmaar, is in his thoughts.
The Albion boss admitted Donk “was not ready” last Sunday but “has got a chance for the weekend, of course he has”.
“Let’s wait and see. The reason he hasn’t played is because he has these wonderful assets of speed and mobility, he is decent with the ball and yet he is still a little bit in a Dutch mentality of playing football.
“You would expect that from him only being in the building a couple of weeks and having played one reserve game.
“He (Barnett) was instrumental in us getting a good result up at Bolton in a game we could have won.
“I am happy with his progress. It is a progression in his career. He was playing for Luton at the bottom end of the Championship against Birmingham the last time we went to watch him.
“Here he is now playing against some of the best players in the world in the Premier League – the step has been huge in such a short time.
“You have to understand it is a progression, he is going through a learning curve and a steep one.
“Without being brutal on him, that hurt the team a little bit on Sunday and if everything was as it was he wasn’t going to play.
‘‘He would have been sat next to me watching and learning with me saying to him ‘see the way Meite uses his body, see the way Meite steps in, that’s what you do. Don’t stand behind him because he is too big as he holds you off and you can’t get the ball’.
“If they are good players they take it in.”
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