JP: We're missing experienced players

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Nick Szczepanik

2024-12-16T22:30+00:00

Jan Paul van Hecke challenges Palace's Tyrick Mitchell in Sunday's game at the Amex. 📷 by Paul Hazlewood.

Jan Paul van Hecke believes that Albion are missing the experience of injured senior players at the moment.

Joel Veltman and Danny Welbeck have joined James Milner in the treatment room and the Netherlands defender thinks that their absence has been felt.

“I think we missed quite a few players,” he said after the 3-1 defeat at home to Crystal Palace. “We have a really young team. You see we beat Man City at home, we can beat all the top teams because we have so much talent, but I feel sometimes we need a bit more.

“And that's a learning curve, but in the Premier League you don't really have a lot of time to learn. So we need to do better and we need to go back to the training ground and work really hard because there's no other option.

"Maybe it's not the best spell we are having, but we keep going and we keep fighting. You don't see boys who don't give everything."

JP agrees with the opinion of head coach Fabian Hurzeler that the team has yet to produce a complete 90-minute performance.

“I think we were really strong in the second half [against Palace]. But I think we need to do that all game. We need to have more consistency over the whole game. I think you see that already this season.

“We have some great halves and some great 30 minutes. But you haven't seen a lot of good 90 minutes and that's for us to show better. In the second half we did a lot of things right, but then you need to score."