Ally Robertson: Tony Pulis and Ahmed Hegazi keeping the art of defending alive and kicking at West Brom

In this day and age of spiralling transfer fees, someone like John Wile would be worth £50million.

He used to attack every delivery sent into the box, and shoved his head where it hurt on countless occasions.

These days, defenders seem more intent on holding onto the shirt of their opposite number rather than winning the ball. Which is why our defensive performance against Bournemouth on the opening day of the season delighted me.

Craig Dawson was brilliant, but it was the new boy Ahmed Hegazi who pleasantly surprised.

He's hard, he's fair, if it's on the floor he wins it and gives it to the midfielders, if it's in the air he heads it away.

It's hardly rocket science, but so many defenders in the league seem incapable of doing the simple things.

Bournemouth made it easy because they were unable to get in behind, but that is partly down to their poor performance and partly down to Pulis's organisation.

We shouldn't get carried away after one game, and I agree with the gaffer that Hegazi needs to be judged much later in the season. But all the early signs are positive.

It will be difficult to break that back four up for the trip to Burnley but if Jonny Evans is available he should slot back in alongside the Egyptian.

Dawson and Hegazi are great at the simple things, but Evans offers that reliability and more, he's a cultured defender capable of controlling passages of play.

Jay Rodriguez had a good debut too, and came so close to scoring. He didn't look the same player when he was moved to a wide position, which is odd, because he's played there for most of his career.

I thought Salomon Rondon could have been brought on a bit earlier to expose the spaces opening up in the Cherries defence, and it will be interesting to see if Pulis changes tact away from home and picks the Venezuelan to lead the line instead.

We could be seeing a change in midfield anyway, following the arrival of Gareth Barry.

It's a typical Pulis signing. You know you're only going to get a season or two out of him, but he's reliable and experienced.

As long as he doesn't get injured, he'll improve the standard in midfield. In the second half against Bournemouth we lacked a midfielder with the presence to put his foot on the ball, but Barry could fix that.