West Brom want to sign Nottingham Forest star, Luke Dowling watches him – report
West Brom want to sign Nottingham Forest centre-back Joe Worrall in the summer regardless of what division they’ll be playing in, according to The Sun.
The newspaper claims technical and sporting director Luke Dowling watched over Worrall, 24, as Forest won 3-0 away at Wycombe in the Championship on Saturday.
It is understood that the Albion are now hoping to land the former Rangers loanee at the end of the season in a bid to improve their defence.
Worrall impressed as Forest beat Wycombe at the weekend.
According to stats by Wyscout, the former England Under-21s centre-back won three of the four aerial duels he contested, made five interceptions, cleared the ball six times and won a whopping 17 recoveries. To put that into context, the Forest ace has only averaged 9.52 recoveries per 90 minutes of football in all competitions this season. Three of those interceptions were also made in the penalty area.
West Brom have leaked goals left, right and centre in the Premier League this season so no matter what division they’re in next term, the defence will need to be improved.
With relegation looking almost certain, signing a proven Championship centre-back like Worrall should stem the flow of goals being conceded.
Even last term in the second-tier, Albion’s defence wasn’t the best for a team that finished second. According to Wyscout, Slaven Bilic’s side conceded more shots [454] than Sheffield Wednesday [424] and Stoke [420]. They also won just 59.4 per cent of defensive duels, which ranked them 14th in the 2019/20 Championship.
This term, Worrall ranks 20th for defensive duel success-rate [72.31%] and fourth for shots blocked per 90 minutes [1.03] in the second-tier.
His defensive numbers are decent and it shows in the fact that he’s made 16 league appearances for Forest this season. In the matches he’s played, they’ve averaged 1.25 points per match. Without him, the East Midlands outfit has averaged one point per game.
As per transfermarkt, West Brom could find themselves losing a number of defenders on free transfers in the summer. Centre-backs Branislav Ivanovic and Kyle Walker, as well as full-backs Lee Peltier, Kieran Gibbs and Conor Townsend will all see their contracts expire in several months’ time.
Signing Worrall might be a neccessity more than anything but a solid centre-back, who has potential resale value, really wouldn’t go amiss in this lacklustre Albion defence.
In other West Brom news, Albion fans want this 45-year-old manager to replace Sam Allardyce.
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