Dorrans picked in team of the year
Monday 26th April 2010, 11:59AM BST.
Albion midfielder Graham Dorrans was today celebrating another end-of-season honour after being picked by his fellow players in the Championship team of the year.
But the Scotland internationak is the only Baggies player to make the side, with his team-mates snubbed despite the club’s potentially record-breaking promotion campaign.
Dorrans was named alongside four players from champions Newcastle and two each from Cardiff and Nottingham Forest in the PFA select XI.
Wolverhampton-born Swansea defender Ashley Williams, who was a Hawthorns trainee, is included along with Blackpool’s Charlie Adam.
But the likes of winger Jerome Thomas and defender Gonzalo Jara did not make the side, despite impressive seasons at the Hawthorns.
The inclusion of Dorrans capped a sparkling week for the former Livingston man, after cleaning up at the Albion Supporters Club’s end-of-season awards dinner.
The £150,000 signing is now being tipped to take the Premier League by storm next season ,after a brief taste of top-flight action in the last campaign.
And Dorrans believes the whole Baggies squad can make the step up, after insisting the Championship is more demanding physically than the top division.
He said: “The gaffer will look to add to the squad. We’ve got players in this team that are capable of holding their own in the Premier League. You have seen that this season in games against Newcastle when we were unlucky not to take the points.
“We’ve got great quality in the squad and I would back anyone to go up to the Premier League and hold their own. The gap is obviously there but the Championship is more demanding.
“We had games every Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday and it’s much tougher physically. But I enjoyed my time last season in the handful of games I played.
“There is a gulf and the Premier League is up there with the best leagues in the world, but I can tell you now that the Championship is not easy to get out of.
“The players in the Premier League are some of the best in the world and playing for some of the best teams in the world, but I would back anyone in our squad to hold their own because we have some fantastic players.”
UK Sport
Latest Blog — A week is a long time in football
This time last week we were staring down the barrel, third from bottom with a worse record than at the same stage last year, writes Saddlers blogger Mark Jones.
Saddlers Blog
Business Awards
Book a Business Awards table
Join our celebrations of the region's best in business on Thursday March 22 - book your table now
Lifestyle
Interactive Dining Out map
Hundreds of reviews by the Express & Star and Shropshire Star's teams to help you decide where to eat.
entertainment
All the film reviews
Before you plan a trip to the pictures, get our critics' verdicts on all the latest movie releases
OUR NEW APP
Get the new E&S app
Download the Express & Star’s new app to your iPad or iPhone to get one week of access to our digital newspapers absolutely FREE.
expressandstar.com
Popular sections
Useful links
Well done to Graham – but to only pick one from a team that finished 2nd with record points for 2nd place, over 100 goals and having entertained so highly is weird….
Report abuse
I can only think of 5 players who you can say have played a full season. Carson, Olsson, Mulumbu, Dorrans and Brunt. Some players arrived in January and the rest of the team has been so disrupted by injuries, suspensions and lack of form it doesn’t surprise me we only have one player in the team of the year. Just shows what a fantastic job Di Matteo has done to keep Albion on course.
Report abuse
Camp, Gunter, Coloccini, Williams, Enrique, Dorrans, Whittingham, Nolan, Adam, Carroll, Chopra
Carson, Jara, Cech, Olsson, Tamas, Mulumbu, Dorrans, Koren/Morrison, Brunt, Thomas, Bednar
Is the first any stronger than the second? I don’t think so.
PFA award can be a mockery anyway, as we saw with Giggs winning the sympathy votes last year, despite playing less than 75% of his club’s games.
Report abuse
Happy – Agree with you. However to put another slant on it you could say we have a TEAM which has achieved more than the sum of its parts which bodes well for next year. As the accrynim goes:-
Together
Everyone
Achieves
More
Let these players go unnoticed for now. Perhaps that way we can surprise a few next season.
Report abuse
I’m not surprised we only had one player chosen while Newcastle had four,because Albion seem to be unfashionable with the media and obviously the football authorities.On sky at the weekend,Jeff Stelling was gushing about Newcastle being ‘back where they belong’ and saying every one had missed them-but not a word about Albion.Players like Nolan and Carroll were picked because they scored most of the toon goals,we just happen to have 21 different scorers,obviously more quality spread through our squad than the other clubs,plus we outplayed Newcastle 3 times this season,the media prefer to keep quiet about that.
Report abuse
Agree with those comments, Sky Sports News was full of Newcastle hype when the Toon got promoted, then we clinched it at Doncaster………nothing in comparison, not bothered, we out played them in the League and Cup, and dare I say…will next season. If anyone goes on the Daily Mail website, the story about Mr. Bullard and the Baggies is mentioned….have a read of the comments below the story…..seems to be a long lost Dingle in the smoke !!
Albion to win 2.0 tonight…
Boing Boing
Report abuse
CantelloRocket, you are so right, I’m sick of hearing about the “great” Newcastle. I tell you now, I would rather have the Albion bosses, than Mike Ashley any day, and if they are so good why did they not stay up last year. It will be great next season giving them another lesson, as there football is boring, and very physical particularly from Smith. I wouldn’t swap would you?
Report abuse
Agree with the comments, Sky Sports News was full of Toon hype when promotion was secured, when we completed the job at Doncaster, nothing in comparison……not bothered, but just goes to show we are not a “fashionable” club in the eyes of the media, at the moment…….once RDM has the boys playing his stuff next season, maybe, just maybe, people will have a new opinion of the club. We get the plaudits for JP, and rightly so, every one looks at the Albion business plan, and now will try and emulate it….on to tonight, tough trip, be interesting to see how many fans go down to the Palace, our customary big last away day fixture party has been spoilt by Sky…..I think we will win by the odd goal, and keep the relegation dust up going till next week. BOING BOING
PS>>>have a look at the Daily Mail story on the Baggies/Bullard story, in the comments below, a long lost Dingle…..poor deluded fellow……..
Report abuse
I can’t say I’d disagree too much with the selection if one was looking at set positions.
The inclusion of Chopra doesn’t impress me, as I’ve nowt but contempt for him, but even taking onboard my bias I’d put Brunt’s season higher than his.
Totally agree with 5 though. Look at how Skysports suck up to Stoke, Villa and even the Dingles in comparison to the begrudging praise that sometimes goes Albion’s way.
Report abuse
WHY WHY WHY.
Is everybody having a go at Sky? The BBC are 10 times worse. Personally I’d rather have it this way, let’s shock a few people that will write us off and leave them red faced.
On the benighted Football League Show, half the programme featured Newcastle the week they got promoted. Then the week we go up Newcastle aren’t playing so they start the programme with Division 1 and Norwich. We know that along with our local rivals we will fill the last 30 second slots on MOTD unless we’re playing a ‘big club’ and Midlands derbies will go virtually unnoticed throughout the media.
On the same thread. The media in general condemn Portsmouth for their reckless spending and then laugh at us for being prudent and getting relegated. Seems they do not understand the irony of their double standards.
Report abuse
Just been having a look at the Palace squad and it’s not difficult to work out who their last manager was if you didn’t know. A lot of hatchet men in there, I hope we come through it without any serious injuries.
Report abuse
TRBH – we know what to expect tonight and I think any of our players hoping to play in the world cup would be better off watching this one on SKY – think its gonna be rough and dirty.
Report abuse
I am surprised Chopra is in PFA team as well Gunter or the Swansea guy. Agree that WBA played NUFC off the park this season but beating one team does not make a season. Enrique and Coloccin were by far the best defenders I saw this year but thought more than Dorrans from WBA would have been named, Brunt comes to mind for one. Actually think Harper or Carson would have been the Keeper and possibly even Guterriez from NUFC was a class act this year. In the end I suppose it does not really matter because the 2 best teams in the league are up.
Report abuse
10 Bully-I didn’t mean to single out Sky,I just watch it more than the BBC,and I’m a big fan of Jeff Stelling.It just seems to be a general thing that Albion have a certain image.A few weeks ago,the Wimbledon Champion Goran Ivanisevic mentioned on Eamonn Holmes’ Sunrise show that he was an Albion fan,the blonde female sports reader (don’t know her name)sitting next to him gasped in shock ‘I don’t believe you support West….’then she realised what she was saying,and suddenly went very quiet.Does JP have to join the masons or some secret society to make us popular?
Report abuse
How much is Dorrans worth?. What we paid for him is in comparison with finding a diamond on blackpool beach.
~~~~BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
Report abuse