Dunk: Difficult times made us stronger

Lewis Dunk knew that Albion would be fine while he was out injured midway through the season.

The captain suffered a knee injury in December which ruled him out action until the beginning of February.

Graham Potter reflected that had he been warned at the start of the campaign that he’d be without his captain, he would have been concerned about how his team would fare.

As it was the squad stepped up as Albion suffered only one defeat in the eight games Dunk missed, winning twice and drawing with the likes of Chelsea and Crystal Palace.

“I was sitting in the crowd cheering the boys on, but I couldn’t do anything which was frustrating," Dunk said. "But the way the boys stepped up was unbelievable and I knew they would.

“We’ve got a good group, we work hard everyday on the training pitch and if we lose one player we know we’ve got that depth and quality that someone can step up in their place. We want to add to that next year.”

The most difficult period of the campaign was yet to come as Albion suffered a six-game losing run in the spring, but we bounced back to finish the season on a high with 17 points from our last eight matches and a record-breaking ninth-placed finish. 

“It makes a team stronger, to go through those difficult times. You’re never going to have a smooth run in the Premier League, every team is good.

“You’re going to lose games in the Premier League and we lost a lot at once. Maybe if they’d been spread out it wouldn’t have been so bad, but we got through it and it’s probably made us stronger as a group.”

That resilience was on display in the final game of the campaign against West Ham, as Albion came from a goal down to win 3-1 at the Amex.

“We knew as a group we had to be better than the first-half performance. West Ham had been competing in the Europa League which showed their quality, so we needed to show we can go toe-to-toe with them.

“We knew it was going to be tough, but we turned up in the second half and showed what we are about.”