West Brom boss Steve Bruce points to Conor Gallagher example as he hunts for Premier League loans
Steve Bruce wants to add Premier League loanees has cited a previous success story to show why West Brom should be a destination for them.
As the transfer window approaches its closure and the squads in the top flight become clearer there will be younger talents who need to go out on loan to aid their development with first team football.
Bruce believes that he is on top of the situation as a manager, and that the Hawthorns would be an attractive option, citing Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher, who spent the 2020/21 season with the Baggies in the Premier League before a breakout campaign last year with Crystal Palace, as a good example.
The Albion manager said, as quoted by Express & Star: “There’s still a month to go, I believe it’s just starting – the big clubs are talking about their young players and who they’re going to let out, so it’s just starting. It’s a bit like us too, we’ve let three or four out. That filters all the way down as well.
“You’re aware and have done your homework on them, you’re just waiting to see if the big clubs say yes or no, basically, when they pick their squad.
“Of course we’d like to think (we’re the ideal place), we used it very well a couple of years ago with Gallagher at Chelsea and the kid’s kicked on enormously since then.
“It helps, that’s why they do it, it helps the development of a young player.
“So we’d like to think we give them a good home.”
Possibilities
When Bruce tipped that he had done his homework on free transfers earlier in the summer he then backed it up by securing the two sought-after acquisitions of John Swift and Jed Wallace.
So now that he is doing the same thing when it comes to picking up rated talents on loan from top flight sides it would be unwise to bet against him.
That should excite Baggies fans who are looking for a further boost in the early weeks of the season, with the transfer window eventually proving relatively positive in light of the all-round apathy that engulfed the end of the 2021/22 season.
Gallagher made 32 appearances in an Albion shirt when he arrived at the Hawthorns as a 20-year-old, and while he had nowhere near the impact that he went on to have for Palace, the club can rightfully claim an important step in his development.
He has since become an England international and made his first team Chelsea debut on Saturday (6 August) in their win at Everton.
While the Baggies are hardly the only club who have a decent record in fostering loan talent, it certainly does no harm to have examples to point to when decisions are being made.
If the next Gallagher, or Harvey Barnes, or even Romelu Lukaku, is set to be available for the season it would lift the squad were Bruce able to bring them in for the campaign ahead.
In other West Brom news, one man the fans want to see a lot more of is in line for a start against Watford on Monday in the predicted starting XI.