Chris Brunt has vowed Albion are setting out to be “brave” and “competitive” when they face Premier League side Bournemouth in the FA Cup Third Round this Saturday.
The interim head coach insisted his starting XI will be chosen based on a strong desire to get through - but did acknowledge the squad is still recovering from a very demanding festive period.
While the Baggies may go into the tie as “underdogs” against their top-flight opponents, they also believe they can achieve a result at the Vitality Stadium, claims Chris.
“We’ve seen upsets all the time in this competition, it can throw up some mad results,” said Brunt. “We’re the underdog for the day, going away to a Premier League team that’s doing really well at the minute.
“We obviously want to put one over them and come away feeling good with a positive performance and result. And if we can get lads minutes in the legs that haven’t played as much as they’d want then everyone’s a winner.
“You always want to rest boys that have played a lot of football over Christmas and you also want to give opportunities to players who deserve it, or haven’t played as much as they’d want.
“But the tie, being away at Bournemouth who are on such a good run in the Premier League, we have to find that balance. That’s something we’ve been discussing all week and hopefully when Saturday comes that’s what we’ll have.
“This week we had a couple of days off, and we’ve done a little bit of training on Wednesday and Thursday based on all the work we did over Christmas. To be fair to the lads, over the last couple of weeks they have proved they can roll their sleeves up and get to work.
“We’ve had our backs against the wall at times, but everybody rolled their sleeves up and got on with it, and we’ll need that again Saturday.
“I think it’ll be a good game. I expect them to rotate a few, but that won’t change how they play and their style, which hasn’t changed all season.
“It’s up to us to put a team out there that will cause them problems, be brave on the ball and take some risks - because if you don’t do that you can’t expect to win. The team we put out will be competitive and we’ll try and win the match.”
It’s a competition the Northern Irishman knows well, having made 28 FA Cup appearances during his playing days with Albion, and he'll be hoping this weekend will be a positive experience to add to the collection.
“I think we had that run ending against Portsmouth, and then the one where Aston Villa knocked us out,” reflected Brunt.
“I was relatively young at West Brom in that point of my career, I don’t remember too much about it other than coming off the bench at Wembley. That was the only time I got to play at Wembley in my career, so I have fond memories of that.
“It was a disappointing day, because that game we felt we probably did enough to go to the final. That was the year we had three Championship teams and Portsmouth in the last four, so if we’d have got to the final we’d have backed ourselves to win it, too.
“That was the best experience I had in the competition. You have some individual moments and games, for example Liverpool at Anfield when VAR was introduced. That was another experience for different reasons, because that was the first time it was used in England.
“We’ve had some good performances in the FA Cup during my career at the club. Those two runs stand out, even though they were disappointing in the end.”