Undav: New players showed they're fitting in well

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Deniz fired in his first goal of pre-season in our 4-3 defeat to Chelsea on Saturday.

Charlie Hanson

2023-07-23T07:30:00Z

Deniz Undav congratulates Joao Pedro after the Brazilian slotted home from the penalty spot.

Deniz Undav has said the biggest positive from our opening Premier League Summer Series match against Chelsea was the way our new signings have clearly settled into the team.

Roberto De Zerbi’s team showed spirit to score twice with ten men as we were beaten 4-3 by the Blues in Philadelphia, but Undav was more than impressed by his new teammates.

“The biggest takeaway from the game is that the new players are fitting into the team really well and quite quickly," he said.

“As a team you could see that our mentality was really good, we came back against Chelsea from three goals down with one man less.

“We had some good actions after the red card and we had a lot of changes, we reacted really well to the situation and you could see that the new players understood the system already. I think we will improve, We know what we have to do, we have a lot of quality.”

New signings Bart Verbruggen, Joao Pedro and Mo Dahoud got their first run outs in an Albion shirt, while Simon Adingra made his first appearance having spent last season on loan with Royale Union Saint-Gilloise.

Deniz believes that they can play a big role in helping Albion try to match last season’s sixth place finish.

“We have a good team, we showed last year how well we can play. We have lost Alexis [Mac Allister], but we have a good few players back. The Europa League means we’re competing in another competition, but I am confident that we can have a similar situation to the last one.”

The German also enjoyed the atmosphere at the Lincoln Financial Field Stadium, as just over 65,000 fans attended our first game of pre-season.

“It was quite similar to the Premier League, it was a good experience. It’s difficult to play in the hot conditions, but I think the fans enjoyed it, it’s fun to have a crowd like and to be able to bring them Premier League football.”