Interviews

Veltman impressed with Ferguson's potential

Young striker made his Premier League debut last month.

By Charlie Hanson • 01 March 2022

By Paul Hazlewood
Evan Ferguson became Albion's youngest ever appearance maker in the Premier League when he came on against Burnley last month.

Joel Veltman can see why Graham Potter was comfortable giving 17-year-old Evan Ferguson his Premier League debut.

The Republic of Ireland Under-21 international became the youngest player to represent the club in the top flight against Burnley last month and Veltman says it was thoroughly deserved.

“There’s lots more to come from Evan,” said Veltman. “His physicality is like he's already 28 – he’s strong. I have played a couple of times against him on the training ground.

By Paul Hazlewood
Joel Veltman has been impressed by Evan Ferguson.

He is really good at holding up the ball, so I need to be smart and get in front of him and take the ball from him. But he uses his body well and when he has the ball you cannot get it from him.

“Hopefully there will be many goals for him, he's doing great and is a good talent.”

The character of Ferguson has really impressed Albion’s Dutch defender.

“He’s a really nice guy as well, I hope we see a lot more minutes for him this season.

By Paul Hazlewood
The striker has played for the first team, under-23s and under-18s this season.

“He is really down to earth and that's what I like, as I like to think I'm also a little bit like that.

“It doesn’t seem that outside factors bothers him. So he is just doing his thing, working really hard on the training pitch and, as a young player, you need to keep doing that.”