Tony Brown shares what Steve Bruce will have told Jake Livermore after West Brom star suspension
Steve Bruce will have told Jake Livermore to focus simply being a midfielder after the West Brom captain’s form hit a new low under Valerien Ismael, according to Tony Brown.
Livermore, 32, received his second red card of the season in Bruce’s first game in charge of the Albion in their 2-0 defeat to Sheffield United on 9 February.
Since returning from his four-match ban, the Baggies captain’s form has improved massively and after impressing in the 1-0 win over Fulham on Tuesday night, Brown feels that Bruce has played a major role in the transformation.
“Jake Livermore was mentioned by the last caller there, he has brought that strength to our midfield,” said Brown on BBC Radio WM last night [15 March], as shown on the BBC Sounds website [21m28s].
“I think Steve Bruce has had a lot to do with this. He’s told him, ‘you stay central, you stay in that middle of the park, you win that battle in there, don’t go marauding here, there and everywhere, you just stick in that middle and keep us solid in the middle of the park’.
“And I think he’s done that in the last two games and I think we’ve looked far better, we’ve looked more solid and we’ve won that battle in the midfield.”
Not forgiven yet
Livermore has a lot to do if he wants to get the West Brom fans to forgive him for the way he’s played in the last few years.
While the so-called ‘Captain Fantastico’ did well at the start of Slaven Bilic’s reign in charge at The Hawthorns, he was woeful in the Premier League and soon found out by Sam Allardyce after he was made manager.
Ismael failed to get the club captain to perform well but so far, we’ve seen a major improvement from Livermore under Bruce if you look past his sending-off in the Baggies manager’s first game.
Livermore was tremendous against Fulham on Tuesday night.
He wasn’t the only one as most of Albion’s stars stood out in their unexpected 1-0 win over the Championship leaders.
Does it revive our bid to finish in the top-six and therefore our bid for promotion? It doesn’t, really. It stops it from dying yet but if we force ourselves to be honest, it’s very unlikely.
Livermore’s improvement is a good sign. If Bruce can get him to do better than he can get a tune out of most of those players.
But Livermore – and the rest – need to put in a lot of improvement if they want to win over a fanbase that has been sick to the back teeth of this squad for some time now.
In other West Brom news, Daryl Burgess delivered his thoughts on the win over Fulham.
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