Boyhood Manchester United fan Evan Ferguson is loving his time with the Albion first team.
The 17-year-old became Albion’s fifth-youngest appearance maker when he came on against Cardiff City in the Carabao Cup earlier on this season – aged 16 years, 308 days – and made his second appearance in the 2-1 win at West Brom on Saturday.
The striker says he is learning a lot in the first team environment especially from hero Danny Welbeck.
“I grew up a Manchester United fan, so I used to watch Danny every week and now he’s a teammate. It’s weird playing and training with him every day.
“There’s a few guys who look out for me in the group. Obviously there’s the Irish connection with Shane [Duffy], he looks after you. But even in training, if you have good movement or you could have better movement they’ll tell you.
"They are used to it every week in the Premier League. With strikers like Neal Maupay, Danny Welbeck and Leandro Trossard, you get to see different types of movement and learn from it.
“I feel good when I am training with the boys, it’s helping build my confidence and my game up.”
Ferguson got a rousing welcome to the pitch against the Baggies from the travelling supporters, who even had a chant for the youngster, and went close to scoring and had a goal disallowed.
“The fans travel in numbers to every away game and give us the support that we need. It was good hearing your name – it gives you even more motivation to try and win the game.
“I thought I’d scored the winner in front of them. I couldn’t see the ball because it was behind the goalkeeper, so I was already running over to the fans to celebrate and I was devastated when it landed on the roof of the net!”