Phillips Exclusive: Big Sam handed huge boost over ‘Desperate’ West Brom player
We’re delighted to welcome former West Brom striker Kevin Phillips as our exclusive columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at The Hawthorns…
Matheus Pereira will be available for West Brom when they take on Liverpool on Sunday after serving a three-match ban.
Pereira, 24, has been West Brom’s most creative output this season but has still managed just one goal and two assists in his 10 Premier League appearances.
Kevin Phillips believes it’s a huge boost for Sam Allardyce to have the Brazilian playmaker available again for the trip to Anfield this weekend.
“It will be good timing. He’ll be desperate to do well, I’m pretty sure of that,” Phillips told West Brom News.
“He let himself down, his team-mates and the support by getting sent off and he’s not been playing his best. He will probably be sat there thinking: ‘I need to perform.’
“It’s a big positive from Sam’s point of view because we know what a player he can be. Certainly, at the moment, there’s nobody really scoring goals or creating so if he could start doing that then it will be a huge bonus for Sam.”
Pereira lit up the Championship with his performances last season but has not really hit the same heights this term in the Premier League.
No one expected him to play as well as he did in the second-tier due to the step up in quality but we would have hoped he’d do better than he has done.
Still, stats by WhoScored show that Pereira has completed more key passes per game than anyone else in the Baggies squad [2.3]. Matt Phillips is second with 0.9 which just shows how much better Pereira has been in attack than any of his team-mates.
The Brazilian is also joint-first for shots per game [1.7], first for fouls won per game [2.3] and second for dribbles per game [1.6].
He’s easily the best hope West Brom have of scoring and after registering a woeful 0.02 xG against Aston Villa last week, you’d hope that the South American could at least helped Albion have a few chances at Anfield this weekend.
In other West Brom news, this Albion loanee’s had his temporary contract terminated.
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