Okay Yokuslu insists there’s plenty of belief within the squad that they can get the result everyone is hoping for down at Southampton on Friday night.
The Baggies take on the Saints at St Mary’s Stadium in the second leg of Sky Bet Championship Play-Off semi-final having drawn 0-0 at The Hawthorns last weekend.
Carlos Corberán’s team delivered a spirited showing on Sunday and the Turkish midfielder thinks the Baggies have what it takes to progress to the final, as long as they “manage” and deal with the demands of the “occasion”.
The 30-year-old said: “We’re going to face a difficult challenge in a tough stadium.
“The pressure has been a bit higher this week, but, of course, the motivation has been higher as well.
“I thought we played well last Sunday and perhaps on another day we would’ve given ourselves an advantage to take to Southampton. We started well and we could have found a goal in the first 20 minutes but, in the end, it was an equal game.
New trim, same Okay. ✂️
A great shift from our midfield general once again. 🇹🇷 pic.twitter.com/uYyPVnzzlP— West Bromwich Albion (@WBA) May 12, 2024
“We should certainly take confidence from that performance and there’s lots of belief among the group that we can go there and get a result.
“I imagine Leeds and Southampton will be quite confident that they are playing the second legs of the Play-Offs at home.
“They are a solid team and they’ll be full of confidence because they are at home and they’ll be very motivated, just like us. We have to be ready to face a very motivated team.
“I’m not expecting Southampton to be too different, but I do think they’ll be more aggressive.
“The beginning of the game is going to be really demanding for us because of the crowd and the occasion. I’m sure they’ll try and press us and they’ll try to put a lot of pressure on us. We’ll have to manage that and we’ll have to try and frustrate them.
“When we analyse games, we often look back at the second half at Southampton back in November. We played really well that day and we use that game to show what we can do well.
“We can perform like that again and hopefully we’ll do that on Friday.”
