GLAD TO BE BACK
Midfielder Romaine Sawyers is loving his West Brom return...
ROMAINE Sawyers says he would pay for the front row seat he’s got as West Brom make their exciting bid to get back in the Premier League.
Sawyers left the Albion six years ago. Now he’s back and even his mother is tweeting about how good these Baggies are.
“My mum’s on Twitter,” reveals Sawyers. “West Brom are tweeting about things and my mum’s replying. I don’t know what she’s doing.”
He scored his first goal since returning to Albion in the 4-2 win over Cardiff last weekend that put West Brom top of the Championship going into the international break.
“West Bromwich Albion means so much to me and my family. I owe the club a lot, especially the academy,” he admits.
Mum Diane raised Sawyers, 27, and his brother and sister as a single parent.
She has had a strong influence on her son and is proud of his non-football work that brought praise at former club Brentford.
Sawyers also drove up from London to Birmingham to deliver a car load of Brentford kit to Midlands club Continental Star, where his mother is a trustee. When Sawyers was let go by West Brom after joining them as a nine-year-old, it was his secret wish to get back there. He built his career just down the Black Country road at Walsall and then Brentford, and was brought back to Albion by Slaven Bilic as a key player in the team he was shaping. “At the training ground, or on the pitch, I’m constantly smiling, it’s amazing,” says Sawyers of his move to his West Brom roots. “I get 15 family members a game. I’ve never had that before. This academy at West Brom, it grew me as a person as well as a footballer. It means so much to me and now I’m back.” The amount West Brom paid Brentford was undisclosed, but Sawyers’ impact is a clear statement. “I am always going to pester Sawyers to get better and better,” admits Bilic. “But the way he played against Cardiff is what I want from him each week. Full stop. “He is managing games better, him and Jake Livermore, pictured left.
“We have a good team, early days and all that, blah, blah, blah... but there is something really good to build on.
“The players should be proud of how we are playing. Our fans are pleased at the moment, they like it, the neutrals like it.
“It’s always about the result, yes, but it’s always nice to play this kind of football too.”
Two of Bilic’s other signings, Grady Diangana, on loan from West Ham, and Matheus Pereira, on loan from Sporting Lisbon with a view to a £9m deal, are a big part of the new swagger in Albion and Sawyers is blown away by it.
He and Livermore are the two in midfield who control and then feed the ammunition for Pereira, two goals in his last three games, and Diangana, four this season.
Those are the stats. Sawyers puts it much better.
Amazing
“For a fan I can only imagine what it’s like, but I’m playing behind Matheus and Grady and I’m like ‘wow’. It’s a joy to watch them. It’s amazing.
“I’ve got this front row ticket. Grady’s goal against Cardiff, I’m thinkting?’. ing ‘why are you shooting?', Then it’s ‘wow, it’s in’.
“They’re young boys plying their trade in a difficult league and they’re making it look easy. We’re glad they’re on our side and not against us.
“I’d pay to watch the two of them, definitely.
“Whoever identified them for West Brom, they’ve come n and done what was expected and long may it continue both here and begreat yond. They’re going to have great careers.”
Sawyers, who is believed to have cost £2.9m, is crystal clear about what he feels about being
You play the here with but to reserves, the score with packed out stadium win was just and to phenomenal Romaine Sawyers
back with the Baggies.
He says he left West Brom as a boy and is back as a man with unfinished business.
“When we’re on our game you can see what we can do, it shows the quality we’ve got in the dressing room and the confidence is high. We’ve just got to keep doing it.”
Albion have Middlesbrough away when the Championship kicks off again on Saturday, a tricky one against a team and manager underachieving in a league that is renowned for being unforgiving. West Brom found that out last season when they rolled all the dice on getting straight back to the Premier League following relegation - and lost. Manager Darren Moore and his successor, caretaker Jimmy Shan, were particular losers, both no longer at the club. There was a danger West Brom could be joining the likes of Leeds, Nottingham Forest, Derby and Sheffield Wednesday as a club of previous status unable to end their stay in the second tier. The dream, now, is to win this league and win it with some Information style. For Sawyers, his dream is reality already.
“I can’t put it into words. As a West Brom boy growing up, you always dream of it.
“You play here with the reserves, but to score with the stadium packed out and to win the game was just phenomenal,” he says of his best moment in a Baggies shirt so far.
Sawyers is still picking up information, with senior pros Livermore and Charlie Austin two he listens to.
“Jake has been there and done it with Tottenham and England. His career speaks for itself,” he said. “The respect I’ve got for him as a person, I’ll dig deep for him and he’ll dig deep for me.
“We very much complement each other without strangling each other.
“If I make a mistake he won’t rip my head off, but say, ‘Rom, it’s ok, but do better next time’.
“Charlie Austin is the biggest joker in the dressing room, but the things he says, on the pitch and off it, you know his experience is second to none.
“Being top of the table, I don’t feel counts for anything now. But if someone had said that after 11 games we’d be in the position we’re in, we’d have taken it.
“We’ve set the foundations, we’ve just got to push for the next 35 games.”