Manager Tony Mowbray today pinpointed the extra mental strength that he believes will help Albion to the Premier League at the second attempt.
Mowbray believes last year’s promotion bid faltered because the side he inherited were too easily crippled by defeats.
But he reckons this year’s Baggies have the toughness to bounce back from the losses he believes are inevitable in the last 11 matches.
“A lot of these players are different,” said Mowbray. “It’s a new team and I see good traits in this team.
“Mentally I think the state of the team is better now than it was last year.
“Last year they got built up to be a top team and the best players and they suffered defeat very badly mentally.
“This year there is a greater mental toughness to accept defeat, put it behind them and move on very quickly.
“The players are fine and they have got a real belief in themselves that they have got enough quality to win enough games. You hope for a strength of character.
“We’ve talked about the state of the league and how we’re going to lose games and you’ve got to understand in their own minds that it’s not a problem and that we are going to have setbacks.
“Everybody is going to have setbacks but you’ve got to remain single-minded and focussed on what you want to do and how you’re going to achieve it.The signs are there that they can do that.”
But Mowbray has played down the role he can play in gearing up his players for the crucial matches during the Championship run-in and the final stages of their FA Cup campaign.
“All my words before games and my preparation and build-up don’t mean anything when they go out on the pitch,” said Mowbray.
“When they go out there it’s down to them.”
5 Comments
As we’ve said many times before, we are going up the Mowbray way, keep the faith, this year we are grinding out results where last year we would have surrendered, take Sheff Wed the other night.
Boing boing for a win on sunday and a trip down Wembley Way for the semi’s.
Keep the faith
just stick together boys and we will be fine,,theres no prima donnas this year,,were a tough unit together we will get to the promised land,,,,DOING THE DOUBLE THE MOWBRAY WAY ,,,IN STYLE OF COURSE,,,OH YES
The baggies played crap against Sheffield and won,Now we play Bristol on Sunday lets show the TV audience how we can play football even though we have play on a rugby pitch
This is what a Express and Star journalist wrote:
Mowbray believes last year’s promotion bid faltered because the side he inherited were too easily crippled by defeats.
This appeared on the official WBA website:
The Baggies boss claims his men faltered in their bid for Premier League football last term because they found it difficult to cope with defeat.
Spot the difference.
Why do E & S journalists feel they need to employ such outdated, emotive language? As a disabled person I w I would like to know how employing the word “crippled” (not a word used by WBA) enhances this story line?
Agreed Baggiebob. Political Correctness precludes the use of emotive language such as you mention. A manager doesn’t have to be eloquent or even articulate, just good at football and with players. Tony Mowbray is always careful in his choice of words and would never have used the word ‘crippled’ to describe a situation. I think it possible that Kamara and Koumas were our men hidden within the article, but we’ll never know from our diplomatic boss.