‘Absolute passenger’, ‘Been totally hiding’ – Many West Brom fans slam one player at HT v Foxes
West Brom fans have taken to Twitter to slam midfielder Romaine Sawyers for his first-half performance against Leicester City at The Hawthorns on Sunday.
Sawyers, 28, made his debut Premier League appearance in the heart of the Baggies midfield alongside Jake Livermore as Slaven Bilic opted to pick his tried-and-trusted midfield duo for the season opener.
However, the former Walsall and Brentford midfielder did little to impress the fans who were watching the match, with many pointing to his lack of influence on proceedings.
At times in the first half, Leicester breezed through the West Brom midfield without having to break much of a sweat and that exposed the defence and therefore also exposed goalkeeper Sam Johnstone.
It’s all well and good having someone who can pass the ball around nicely and dictate the play from a deeper area but as a newly-promoted side in the Premier League, your midfield needs a bit of bite that Sawyers didn’t seem to have in the opening 45 minutes.
Albion fans criticised his lack of involvement, with one saying that “the ball boys have touched the ball more times than Sawyers”.
Here is a selection of their tweets:
https://twitter.com/westbromStevo18/status/1305138208020353025
These West Brom fans aren’t wrong to point out Sawyers’ anonymous first-half performance with stats by WhoScored showing that the midfielder completed just 11 passes.
In comparison, Leicester’s Youri Tielemens completed 41.
Sawyers also saw just 2.5 per cent of the overall possession in that opening half – only Callum Robinson had less of the ball out of West Brom’s entire squad.
In other West Brom news, Richard Keys has tipped Bilic to leave The Hawthorns before Christmas.
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