View: Just two members of current squad feature – West Brom team of the decade
It’s almost the end of the decade and a lot of fans, pundits and websites are putting together their team of the 2010s, so we thought ‘why not do one for West Brom?’.
Albion have enjoyed one of the best decades in recent history, spending eight and a half of the 10 years in the Premier League and the other one and a half fighting it out at the top end of the Championship.
Baggies fans have seen some truly awful players wear the blue and white stripes in that time but we have also seen the emergence of new cult heroes and modern-day legends born.
Here is our West Brom team of the decade:
Goalkeeper – Ben Foster
Foster joined Albion on an initial loan deal from Birmingham City in 2011 before making his switch to The Hawthorns permanent.
Before leaving in 2018 to join Watford, Foster made 223 appearances in all competitions for West Brom and kept 57 clean sheets. He won’t be someone who West Brom fans will forget in a hurry.
Defence – Gareth McAuley, Jonas Olsson, Jonny Evans
West Brom did not really have any full-backs to brag about in the 2010s so we have opted for a back-three featuring three of the best centre-backs in Albion’s recent history.
Olsson and McAuley were absolute rocks at the back for the Baggies.
Swedish colossus Olsson joined the club in 2008 before leaving in 2017 and McAuley is hailed as one of West Brom’s best-value transfers in history after making 227 total appearances since being snapped up on a free transfer in 2011.
Evans may not have been at West Brom for long, featuring for the Baggies between 2015 and 2018. However the 31-year-old’s quality was clear for everyone to see and he is continuing to show that quality now with high-flying Leicester.
Midfield – Matt Phillips, Claudio Yacob, Youssouf Mulumbu, James Morrison, Chris Brunt
Phillips could be a controversial one but the 28-year-old has been one of West Brom’s best players since relegation in 2018 and in the 2016/17 season at The Hawthorns, the Scotland international was in phenomenal form on the right-wing.
Yacob and Mulumbu are no-brainers to be the two central midfielders in this team. West Brom were at their peak in the Premier League when these two were playing regularly alongside each other. Between them they made 386 appearances for the Baggies and will go down as fan favourites for a very long time.
Brunt is yet another no-brainer in this team and, along with Phillips, is one of just two current players who feature in this squad. Brunt has been there and done it all with West Brom in the 2010s. He loves the Baggies and is widely regarded as a modern-day legend by The Hawthorns faithful.
Morrison is another one who could fall into a similar category as Brunt and while it was a while back now when the attacking midfielder was at his best for West Brom, there has to be a place for the recently-retired Scot in this team.
Strikers – Peter Odemwingie, Romelu Lukaku
You either love him or loathe him, but there is no way that the man who scored a hat-trick at Molineux and West Brom’s top-goalscorer in the Premier League era could miss out on this team.
Forget about the way he left The Hawthorns – Odemwingie has been West Brom’s best striker of the 2010s. He scored 31 times in 90 appearances for the Baggies with his goals in the early part of the decade being one of the main reasons behind the club’s longest spell in the top-flight since 1976-86.
Lukaku may have only been at The Hawthorns for one season but the Belgian striker was an absolute joy to watch during his loan spell from Chelsea. He netted 17 goals in 38 appearances for West Brom, fired them to a record eighth-placed finish and who can forget his hat-trick in the 5-5 draw against Manchester United, the team he would eventually sign for in a deal worth over £75million?
In other West Brom news, David Prutton has predicted Wednesday night’s clash against Bristol City.