Tony Pulis: Darren Moore will be a top manager
Former Baggies boss Tony Pulis is confident Darren Moore has got a big future in management.
Pulis returned to The Hawthorns on Saturday for the first time since he was sacked in November 2017 after nearly three years at the helm.
Moore was a youth team coach and loan manager when Pulis was head coach and used to travel with him to scout players and opposition teams.
The pair first met at Portsmouth 19 years ago, when Pulis made Moore his captain, and the experienced manager believes Albion's fledgling head coach will evolved into a great one.
“They have a fantastic young manager," said Pulis. "I think Darren is going to be a top manager, and his team play for him, they are a really, really good team.
“The two goals that they scored are two scuffed deflections that have gone in, but having said that they still had lots of chances and lots of opportunities and they move the ball really and they have got real quality."
The result moved Boro level on 50 points with Albion, and Pulis was pleased with the win because he believes Moore has the strongest squad in the league.
“Without a question of a doubt the Albion have got more players in their squad who can step up and play in the Premier League than any other team in the Championship so it's a big result for us," he said.
After receiving plenty of stick from the home fans during the game, who were chanting 'Tony Pulis, your football is s***,' Pulis ran onto the pitch at full-time to celebrate.
Afterwards, Gareth Barry said: "Of course we can hear the fans as players but we go out there to win a game of football.
"When ex-players and ex-managers come back to the home team, sometimes they get stick. Tony got some stick, that's why he celebrated like that I'm sure.
"It was a typical Middlesbrough performance," added Barry. "We knew they'd make things really hard for us to play out but we still had good passages of play.
"Their goals, they were almost waiting for us to make mistakes rather than creating them themselves. That was nothing we didn't realise was coming.
"We're obviously disappointed, moreso to be 2-1 up with 20 minutes to go. To end up losing the game, we have some big lessons to learn moving forward.
"At this stage of the season you don't want to be losing home games. We'll learn from it, there's a game coming up really quick and we've got to try and put it right."
