Callum Styles was encouraged by Albion’s pre-season performance against Ukrainian champions Dynamo Kyiv on Friday lunchtime.
The Baggies drew 1-1 with a side who have UEFA Champions League qualifiers coming up later in July at the Bad Tatzmannsdorf Fussballarena in Austria.
Nat Phillips’ powerful second-half header was cancelled out by Vladyslav Vanat’s calm finish on a day where Ryan Mason handed match minutes to 21 players.
Styles says today’s opponents were “sharp”, but insisted Albion had plenty of their own promising periods in the encounter.
The defender said: “It was a good runout. The starting lads got 60 minutes into their legs. It was quite a hot one to start with, but then the weather cooled off.
“I think that was about their fourth pre-season game and this is only our second, so they were quite sharp. I thought we dealt with that aspect quite well though.
“We had good spells in the game, but so did Dynamo Kyiv. Obviously there are things we need to improve on and make little tweaks to things, but it’s only our second game and we’ve got time between now and the start of the season.
“We have certain patterns that the gaffer wants us to play. Sometimes in the games they’re going to come off and other times they won’t, but the main thing is to keep on doing those things and keep forcing them in pre-season.
“It’s important to know all of these things such as being sure on where we need to be and understand the timings of our runs.
“I think there were some parts of the game today which were really good and we can certainly build on them.
“We’ve got to be a team and we’ve got to be together. We need to bring that into the season.
“In terms of the goal, Nat has done well. He’s a big target and you can’t miss him, but Mikey has done well with the cross.”
