Diagne likes what he sees at Baggies...

MBAYE Diagne believes he is finally seeing the fruits of his hard work rewarded, having got to grips with Premier League life in a West Brom shirt.

The striker wasn’t afforded much of a bedding-in period when he arrived on loan from Galatasaray in January, and though he made an immediate impact in teeing up Matheus Pereira on his debut against Fulham, there were games in which he struggled somewhat.

Besides the Manchester United header, Diagne continued to be denied goals by offside flags, or the woodwork. Indeed, it’s an ongoing frustration for head coach Sam Allardyce that he doesn’t have seven or eight goals to his name.

Even when he did find the net legally, as he did against Southampton last week, it was unfairly taken away from him.

That said, that effort was only following up his superb all-round display at Chelsea the week before, in which he finished off a wonderful team move to bag his second goal for the Baggies.

“I feel I have adapted to the Premier League and England now,” Diagne said. “I think it was difficult at the start because of the driving, language, and the different way of life. I have got to know all of my team-mates better and the link-up between us is getting better and better, but the manager believes in me and has faith in me.

“It’s my job to adapt and score goals and I’m confident of doing more of that. I’m feeling better after each game and I really like it here at West Bromwich Albion.”

Understandably, Diagne needed a short while to get used to the new footballing environment in which he’d placed himself.

While results elsewhere this past weekend have gone against Albion, the Senegalese international is focused on keeping the heat up when they make for Leicester on Thursday.

“The Premier League is living up to its reputation. I like it when the games are tough. You have to fight and I like fighting to win games and scoring goals,” he added. “I am really enjoying playing in the Premier League. I was really happy to score against Man United and then Chelsea. I was really happy for the team that we secured important results against some big teams.

“It’s always a pleasure to score and I want to show I can score goals against any team and I want to experience those feelings again. If I continue to get chances, I know I will score goals and if I can do that then I will be helping out my team, which is the main thing I want to do.

“With the squad we have at the moment, we are fighting and you can see that in our play. Although we’ve missed opportunities to win games, we’ve been in a lot of them.

“All of these things are giving us hope we can stay in the Premier League if we keep working hard.”