West Brom coach backs Simon Cox to come good

Oct 23 2009 by Chris Lepkowski

"Simon has been fantastic in training with his work ethic.

"He's enthusiastic and we want that.

"We don't want a player who's happy when he's on the bench - we want him to show us he should be in the starting XI."

Albion's promotion two seasons ago was aided by the 44 goals scored by strikers Kevin Phillips, Ishmael Miller, Roman Bednar and Craig Beattie.

So far this season, Albion's forwards - Cox, Bednar, Luke Moore and Chris Wood - have managed just six goals.

But Newton added: "We're creating on average 15 chances per game.

"If you do that then that is more than enough for the strikers to take those.

"The way we structure our teams to play, yes we'd love our strikers to be scoring 20 or 25s, but we've got centre-halves, midfielders and wingers scoring.

"You can't just rely on two or three people because they will hit dips in form - they need to come from everywhere

"What is more important is that we're getting in the positions when we create those chances. If that wasn't then it would be a bigger worry."