Craig Dawson Appreciation Post

Yesterday West Bromwich Albion's centre back/right back, Craig Dawson, signed a contract extension that would keep him at B71 until the summer of 2020. Brought to the club in 2010 by Dan Ashworth, 'Daws' could well follow in the footsteps of fellow Albion teammates James Morrison and Chris Brunt by making it to a testimonial. That in itself, considering how patchy his Baggies career has been until the last couple of years, is an impressive feat.

Now I know virtually everyone reading this knows how much I adore Craig, and no doubt you'll think of this as a very biased post.

Dawson has many critics, especially from his own supporters (I sit in front of some of them at the Hawthorns and have to bite my tongue!) and it has to be said that ever since the despicable abuse for Brunt has faded poor Daws has become the latest scapegoat.

Granted, he may not be a world-class player. He wouldn't be a West Brom player if he was! But he has been at this football club for seven years, bided his time in breaking into the first team with the likes of Jonas Olsson, Gareth McAuley, Joleon Lescott and Jonny Evans as mentors and, when called upon, has done his job and, more often than not, done it well. At times he has even outshone his more experienced partner at the centre of defence.

After brief spells in the first team under the stewardship of Roy Hodgson, Steve Clarke and Pepe Mel, as well as loan spells at Rochdale and Bolton, it was when the much maligned Alan Irvine arrived at the club where Dawson really started to prove his worth. Having handed in a transfer request after three years of playing understudy to others and with Burnley interested, Irvine convinced Dawson that he was very much in his plans and, alongside Lescott, was a rock for the early stages of the season and gained valuable experience along the way.

Under Tony Pulis, and for once I will give credit where it is due, Daws has largely played at right back in the Welshman's standard tall and solid. Albeit unfamiliar and even to this day not quite looking the part Pulis has nurtured and drilled our promising centre half into a good Premier League defender.

Having done some research, in the games Dawson has played for Albion at both centre half and right back, we have kept 35 clean sheets in total and he has chipped in with ten goals. He may be seen as a "typical Pulis player" but if Pulis is what we have to put up with I'm glad he has been able to get the best out of a player who always puts in 100%, never causes trouble and is an all round nice person.

I hope that he will one day get a call up to the national squad. If others don't agree with that, fair enough, but I struggle to think of many others more deserving.

Jonny Evans to City?

For the past 12 months us Albion fans have been biting our nails over the possible departure of one of our best players in Jonny Evans. Last season Arsenal had been courting him for the summer; this time round Everton and Leicester had been strongly linked. This afternoon, however, it has been reported that Manchester City have had (in Baggies supporters' view) an insulting and derisory bid rejected.

£18m may seem like a huge amount, especially to a club like ours, but in the current outrageous market where City themselves have already spent over £200m to shore up their backline, we would want much more than that to not only replace a very good centre half, but also an influential player and our newly appointed captain.

On social media, where Sky Sports have reported the story, many "top six" fans have been laughing at City's move for Evans. The fact that 1. he has been in the running for our Player of the Season both times since his arrival at Albion and 2. he is constantly linked with the best teams in the elite of English football, shows to us that these "fans" don't actually pay attention to the "irrelevant" teams lower down the league.

Yesterday, Evans' fellow Northern Irishman, Chris Brunt, celebrated his 10th year anniversary as a West Bromwich Albion player, a mere couple of weeks after James Morrison celebrated the same feat. Whilst it would have been most unlikely that Evans himself would have reached the same achievement with us there is a feeling about the place that it may be a long time before we will see this again, if we ever will.

With the departure of Darren Fletcher back in June, Evans was handed the captaincy in a possible ploy to persuade him to stay with us, but with the signing of Gareth Barry from Everton and now the news of interest from the North West, it now seems likely that it will be a case of how much we will sell him for. Gylfi Sigurdsson's arrival at Goodison Park paves the way for Nacer Chadli to head to Wales, so Albion could be looking at an influx of cash that should be spent on strengthening the squad. However, it may take a lot of work to convince supporters with quality when Evans and Chadli, both considered quality acquisitions, could be on the way out.

Personally, I hope we are able to hold onto Jonny Evans, as he is a very classy player whom many of us at Albion consider too good to be at B71. The sad reality is, however, that even though he will most likely be further down the pecking order at Manchester City, and their supporters may not deem him good enough, we have to face the fact that all we'll ever be is a stop-gap for players wanting to better themselves or a retirement home.

As is the way of the Premier League and lack of loyalty in football.