West Bromwich Albion: Midfield set crucial goals
TONY Mowbray has placed his faith in his midfielders to score enough goals to keep Albion up this season.
The Albion boss explained earlier this week that he will continue to play one striker for the immediate future because he does not believe he has the right combination to play 4-4-2.
But his fluid system should allow for the likes of James Morrison, Robert Koren, Kim Do-Heon, Jonathan Greening, Borja Valero and Chris Brunt to get forward and plunder goals as they did when Albion were promoted.
“My midfield scored a hell of a lot of goals last year. Four of them got more than 10 and I expect them to do it again this year,’’ said Mowbray ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Middlesbrough.
“James Morrison has just chipped in with two, Koren has had chances to score goals and Brunt scored the other week.
“Give us 36 games and then see how many goals our midfielders score.
“If they don’t score enough we will probably get relegated and I will be able to say ‘we weren’t good enough’.
“If they do (score enough goals), I won’t even be asked the question (about formations).”
Mowbray is on the look-out for a younger Kevin Phillips type player to drop behind his front man.
He joked: “In an ideal world if we could sign Lionel Messi tomorrow I would probably stick him underneath my main striker, but we would be playing two strikers with Messi behind Roman Bednar or Ishmael Miller.
“We tried hard to bring in a striker but it didn’t quite happen.
“There aren’t many teams in the Premier League, even right at the top level, who play with two centre-forwards.
“I saw Tottenham against Villa the other week with Darren Bent and Roman Pavlachenko both wanting to run over the top – they didn’t get a kick.”
Craig Beattie has joined Crystal Palace on loan until October 28 and is eligible for their live TV trip to Ipswich on Saturday.
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