The transfer market. It’s a difficult beast to handle, one fraught with danger, however good your research, however smartly you approach it. There’s always another club looking to steal a player from under your nose, or the player who looks a sure fire winner only to fail once a move is made. You can bring ten new faces in and watch them queue up to flop, or place your eggs in a solitary basket and still be crossing your fingers as the contract is inked.
Or, alternatively, you can do what we did 18 months ago and buy yourselves Jonny Evans.
No, nothing in football is ever certain, but investing in the Northern Irish international, a veteran of a string of huge nights and big trophies at Manchester United and yet a man only just coming into his footballing prime was about as close as you’re going to get to backing an absolute cert.
And so it has proved with Evans now an admirably consistent 55 games into what could go on to be a hugely significant Albion career. In spite of this, it’s the first opportunity Albion News has really had to grill him on his life and times, so come with us, all the way back to his childhood as a Belfast boy.
“As a boy back home, I was just playing in local football and when I was nine, a scout from Manchester United, Eddie Coulter, approached my parents. I first went across to England when I was ten and had a trial at United and that was it really, it all sounds very simple!
“From there, it was back and forward every school holiday, every chance that I got, training at United as often as I could and getting to know the place, the people and coming through the various age groups.
“United have a big following back home, they always have had, and I grew up as a United fan so to have them come and ask me to go over and play for them, it was a no brainer, there was no decision to make. I had a little bit of interest from other clubs about going on trial but I always had it in my mind that I wanted to go to Manchester United, so I never went anywhere else.
Denne historien er fra WBA v ARSENAL on 18.03.2017 in the Premier League-utgaven av Albion News.
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Denne historien er fra WBA v ARSENAL on 18.03.2017 in the Premier League-utgaven av Albion News.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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albion v derby county
this was a 90 minutes that did have all the hallmarks of a classic fa cup tie but unfortunately those hallmarks tend to include the big club losing out to the smaller one after an impassioned rearguard action, helped by a healthy dose of (mis) fortune. on that score, this was the kind of game that has given the fa cup its huge reputation both in this country and around the world, but to be honest, we’d have much preferred a quiet, uneventful afternoon where, in the finish, the form book was upheld.
Albionship 3000
The Football League resumed just as this season will end, with the Throstles winging their way to Swansea, albeit that back on August 31st 1946, Swansea City were then still just a Town, playing their football on the Vetch Field rather than the Liberty Stadium.
Middlesbrough v Albion
We’ve been here before – notably at Hull and Sunderland – but the conundrum is, was this a point won or two spilled.
Chairman - John Williams
Things get taken for granted very quickly in football, such that very often, credit doesn’t get dished out when it’s due.
Jonny Evans - the way he plays . . .
The transfer market. It’s a difficult beast to handle, one fraught with danger, however good your research, however smartly you approach it. There’s always another club looking to steal a player from under your nose, or the player who looks a sure fire winner only to fail once a move is made. You can bring ten new faces in and watch them queue up to flop, or place your eggs in a solitary basket and still be crossing your fingers as the contract is inked.
the numbers game
statistically speaking, this has already been a big season for many members of the albion dressing room, with plenty more milestones in the offing for a few of them to boot.
in this proud land
in building a football club, a near 140 year old institution, there are countless crucial personalities and turning point moments that shape what the albion is today. in this series, we’ll be looking at many of them. in this of all weeks, who else could we turn to than the king himself…
Tony Pulis
‘We have given ourselves a chance of having our best season in the Premier League era, and we really want to capitalise on that opportunity over these next three months’
Albion V Crystal Palace
The problem with getting used to the finer things in life is that if, on occasion, you are deprived of them, it stings all the more. And that’s exactly what happened against Palace for, after an amazing run of seven home wins in eight Premier League games at The Hawthorns, a run where we’ve been scoring goals and creating chances aplenty, this was one of those afternoons where we could have played until Sunday and still not scored.
Everton V Albion
The game is, as the cliché instructs, all about results and, more than that, about scorelines. On the face of it, it looks as through Albion took a drubbing at Goodison and certainly the Toffees were the side deserving of their three points on the day. But look a little beyond the three goal difference and you’ll find a game that was much closer than 3-0 suggests and a performance that was far sparkier than the one against Palace a week before.
