Express & Star

Tony Pulis predicting more goals from 'natural' finisher Jay Rodriguez

Tony Pulis is confident natural finisher Jay Rodriguez will bag plenty more goals in an Albion shirt – although they might not be as spectacular as his first.

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Jay Rodriguez

The 27-year-old, who joined this summer in a deal totalling £15million, hammered a 20-yard screamer into the top corner ten minutes into today's game with Leicester City in the Premier League Asia Trophy.

Pulis heaped praise on the former Southampton man afterwards, but admits he expects him to threaten from much nearer during the season.

"Jay’s strike was fantastic,” said Pulis. "The lad was a very good player. He had a couple of bad injuries that set him back and he’s not really got himself in a position to have a run of games.

“We’re hoping we can get him back and get him fit because he’s a natural goal scorer. That was spectacular today. Usually he will score inside the box which is what we need.”

Rodriguez's team-mates have also been impressed with his attitude in training and the 'glimpses' of quality he's shown them.

"It’s a bit different to what he’s been used to," said Baggies skipper Jonny Evans. "All the physical training we’ve been doing, but he’s knuckled down.

"You can see he’s determined to do well. As the manager said, he’s got a bit of a point to prove because of his past injury experiences.

"He’s come in, took his goal really well today. As soon as he hit it you could tell it was going top corner.

"We’ve seen glimpses of that in training and hopefully that’s something he can bring to us this season."

The Baggies drew 1-1 with Leicester in Hong Kong, but lost the semi-final on penalties and now play Crystal Palace on Saturday in a third-placed play-off.

Pulis, though, was pleased with how his players coped with the humid conditions after a gruelling training schedule.

“We overload our players enormously in the first two weeks,” he said. “The lads have done a morning, an afternoon, and an evening session.

“We do two weeks of overloading and then we cut back and get a lot of short sharp stuff in.

“The first two weeks are important, so you get the strength into their legs so they don’t pick up muscular injuries.

“We played in very difficult conditions with the humidity and we got all the players through, so we’re pleased.”

The Baggies boss only had three senior outfield players on his bench, including Nacer Chadli, who refused to go to Austria.

Pulis is keen to sign 'three or four' more players before the transfer window shuts, but admitted that the squad was not going to swell much beyond that.

“They [Leicester] are bringing on multi-million pound players," said Pulis. "We’re bringing on young kids. But that’s West Brom.

“We’re hoping to get three or four more added to the squad, they’re going to be three or four players we hope that are better than what we’ve got so we improve it.

“But we won’t and we can’t get an enormous squad of players.”