West Brom Assistant on Spurs’ Pritchard’s Playing Time
Alex Pritchard only made one appearance for Spurs this season and so far only three appearances for West Brom. Baggies’ assistant manager, Dave Kemp, goes into some detail as to why.
When the January transfer window was winding down, Spurs were able to make a transfer deadline deal with West Bromwich Albion to send highly-rated attacking midfielder, Alex Pritchard, on loan for the rest of the season.
But yet, the 22-year-old has only made three substitution appearances in all competitions (two league games and one FA Cup tie) since joining the west Midlands club for first-team opportunities and to get back to full fitness. And now Baggies’ assistant manager, Dave Kemp, talks about why Pritchard’s loan hasn’t worked out.
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“You go on and the team is playing well, it is much easier,” Dave Kemp told the Birmingham Mail.
“He is a good footballer, no question about that. It is awkward when everybody else is playing poorly, it is not easy.”
In Alex Pritchard’s first two appearances for West Brom, he showed brief glimpses of the type of player he can be with Spurs as well as with the Baggies while on loan, against Newcastle United and Reading (in the FA Cup).
But when West Brom took on Norwich City in their last match at home, just before the international break, Pritchard struggled to make any impact as a substitute in the game’s final 17 minutes before the Canaries won 1-0 at the Hawthorns.
“It gave him an opportunity, but on the day it was difficult,” Kemp said of Pritchard’s game against Norwich.
“It wasn’t the best stage for him because the team’s not playing well, it makes it awkward for him.”
In a nutshell, the main reason why Alex Pritchard hasn’t been given many opportunities to help West Brom this season is because the whole team has been playing poorly. Which in turn, affects Pritchard when he comes on as a substitute to try and make any impact.
Basically, it’s just one big awkward situation for the young 22-year-old midfielder who is trying his best to show that he can impress and follow up on his incredible loan spell with Brentford last season under Mark Warburton.
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But despite the recent form of both West Brom and Pritchard, he has apparently made quite an impression during a closed-doors friendly with Burnley at the Albion training ground recently.
Therefore there’s still hope that Alex Pritchard can still get valuable playing time with the first-team before returning to Spurs at the end of the year.
Otherwise, for Pritchard and Spurs, this would be a disaster of a move for both parties, in helping the young midfielder get a chance to show what he can do. And for not getting a chance because of an “awkward situation” happening with the Baggies.
Still, for those people who are looking at the grand scheme of things following this loan move between Spurs and West Brom. Perhaps it can slowly work in Tottenham’s favor to secure a potential transfer for Baggies’ striker, Saido Berahino?
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Even though, ironically, no one wanted the “troubled” striker after he voiced frustration following Jeremy Peace’s rejection of his personal transfer request when Spurs were interested in the 22-year-old with four failed transfer bids.
It seems that a transfer to sign Berahino is all that it will take to forget his little Twitter rant from last summer. As if nothing ever happened and everything is now water under the bridge all of a sudden.