James Morrison revealed he’s demanding a positive reaction from his players when they return to Sky Bet Championship duties this weekend.
The Baggies, who suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat at Wolverhampton Wanderers in their most recent fixtures three weeks ago, take on fellow West Midlands rivals Birmingham City at The Hawthorns on Saturday lunchtime (ko 12.30pm).
Eight members of the first-team squad spent time away with their national teams over the international break, while the rest of the group were given opportunity to reset and recharge before coming back into The Fitlife Foods Performance Centre to what Morrison described as a “mini pre-season” in preparation for the next block of second-tier battles.
The boss says he’s been itching to get back into the swing of Championship matches, but insists the pause in the hectic schedule has been beneficial for a whole host of reasons.
Morrison said: “It was nice to get everyone back from international duty and everyone is fine. It’s been a long period of time – probably too long for my liking to be honest. It’s been a bit strange and I’ve wanted to get back down to work and into game mode.
“We’ve used the weeks to put some hard work into the players and look at a few things. We’re trying to get better on a daily basis and credit to the lads for putting so much effort in.
“I think the break came at a good time. The period prior was pretty hectic and we missed a lot of training days because of the schedule and playing and then having to recover properly.
“It was important that we got back to our principles over the break such as working really hard – we’ve made it hard for the lads who have been here because we didn’t want them to lose any of that fitness they’ve built up. It was an important time to manage the fitness load so it’s felt like a mini pre-season.
“We’re going into the next block of games now and we’ve got seven before the next international break in November. We’ve spoken about the importance of maintaining the good start and to carry on building. We’ve also had conversations about resetting and trying to get into a positive feeling like we were in the first block of games.
“I’m demanding a positive performance against Birmingham City on Saturday. We need a positive reaction to our last game and everyone wants to see that.
“It’s certainly a different challenge in terms of the way that they play now. They apply pressure in different ways in terms of putting the ball in your penalty area and trying to capitalise on set-plays and long throws.
“If you look at their games, a lot of them are decided by one-goal margins or they end up as a draw. They’ve signed a lot of players once again and they’re a strong team in this division so we’ll have to be ready for the challenge.”
