Captain Lewis Dunk believes Albion are proving how special this current group of players are as they continued their charge for European football with a 2-0 win at Bournemouth on Tuesday.
Teenagers Evan Ferguson and Julio Enciso grabbed the goals as Albion took advantage of their games in hand over fourth place Tottenham, cutting the gap to four points ahead of Saturday’s game in North London.
“We’re showing out on the pitch how special we can be,” the skipper said. “Some of the football we play and the confidence to do it when some teams wouldn’t attempt it is incredible.
“A lot of work goes into it on the training pitch and it shows in our games. We’ve got a lot of confidence in ourselves.
| Pos | Team | Pld | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
Albion
|
38 | +19 | 62 |
|
2
|
AVL
|
2 | +2 | 6 |
|
3
|
FUL
|
2 | +2 | 6 |
“We like to have the ball and that can frustrate teams at home, it gets the crowd on their back and that helps sometimes. If we can control games like we did against Bournemouth we’re going to be in a good position at the end of the season.
"The target is Europe and why not? We’re in a position to do that. For me, you never know what might happen in the future and this might be my only opportunity to qualify for Europe. I’m not getting any younger, we’ve got some top players, a top manager. I want to grasp this opportunity.”
Dunk, alongside his fellow defenders, are having to prove their ball-playing ability under head coach Roberto De Zerbi, but it’s something Lewis says he’s comfortable displaying.
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“The gaffer has certainly helped me see football in another way, he simplifies football, it appears complicated at times but it’s simple because you always have options to play the ball out. If everyone is on the same page it makes football easy.
“I’ve always been comfortable on the ball – I’ve always had that in my locker. Different managers brings out different sides of your game, this manager wants us to play with the ball and I am comfortable doing that.”