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Comment: Signs that Grzegorz Krychowiak will start to live up to his big reputation

When Grzegorz Krychowiak arrived from Paris Saint-Germain in the summer, it was seen as a huge coup for the Baggies.

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Grzegorz Krychowiak had one of his best games of the season at Anfield. (AMA)

A double Europa League winner with Sevilla who joined the French giants last year for around £34m, he was supposed to be the Ferrari in Albion’s engine room that would drive them up the table in style.

So confident were the club that the signing would work out, they agreed to stump up all of his £108,000-a-week wages for the season, making him the top earner in the squad by some distance.

All of that meant Krychowiak arrived with an almost-impossible reputation to live up to, and many who had never seen him play unfairly expected him to single-handedly run games in a new league.

Because he’s yet to win a game for the Baggies and because Gary Megson dropped him once Tony Pulis was sacked, his fledgling Albion career has been seen as a failure so far.

Supporters wondered why Pulis had decided to pursue another defensive midfielder when he already had Claudio Yacob, Gareth Barry, Jake Livermore and Sam Field.

And as Krychowiak fell to fifth choice behind all of those, including a wet-behind-the-ears 19-year-old, the word ‘flop’ was beginning to edge into consciousness.

But that would be an unfair brush to tar him with. Even though the Polish midfielder grew visibly frustrated as results and performances deteriorated under Pulis, there were extenuating circumstances.

Pulis’s Albion played a markedly different brand of football to Sevilla and PSG.

So often Krychowiak would show for the ball short, pleading with the full-back or the centre-back to trust him in his own half with his back to goal, only to see it clipped into the channel for Salomon Rondon to chase.

After being overlooked dozens of times, and consequently forced to do most of his work off the ball, he became more and more dejected.

But looking at the statistics, he was still one of Albion’s most useful players out of possession.

In the league, he is joint-top of the interceptions chart with Ahmed Hegazi on 31, despite featuring for just over 800 minutes this season compared to the big Egyptian’s 1,500.

He is fourth on the list of most tackles made – behind Hegazi, Allan Nyom, and Jake Livermore – all of whom have spent more time on the pitch than him.

Put simply, nobody wins the ball back more often than he does.

This week, we saw what he can do in possession at Anfield. Tidy in tight spaces, he has an expansive range of passing that includes short, sharp five-yarders and graceful cross-field 50 yarders.

He recycles the ball more often than most of the team, playing it back to the defence in order to rebuild an attack.

If you were being picky, you would like to see him play more incisive forward passes. But there’s no denying his quality in possession matches his efficiency out of it.

When he was out of the team, Krychowiak’s arrival was beginning to look like a sign that the cash-rich Baggies who had plenty of TV money to spend were now able to attract Europe’s elite, but unable to get the best out of them.

Despite the fact it was Pulis who chased him and signed him, it seemed like the Pole’s game was never really suited to the Welshman’s football.

However, at Anfield, where he put in his best performance of the season, there was a glimmer of hope to suggest he will be more suited to Alan Pardew.

The new boss was disappointed with Krychowiak’s fitness levels when he arrived at the club and left him out of his first two line-ups – perhaps another case of the Polish midfielder needing to get up to Premier League speed – and he did tire towards the end of the game in Liverpool.

But for the first 70 minutes he showed his pedigree, and with Albion playing a more possession-based game under Pardew, even though they didn’t have much at Anfield, the Baggies faithful could start to see more of his best.

Pardew is not afraid to have the ball in his own half, he does not urge his team to pump it forward quickly, he trusts his players to play.

And all of that bodes well for Krychowiak, who could start to live up to his enlarged reputation, however fair or not that may be.