George Harmon believes Albion’s PL2 side are well-prepared for their trip to Newcastle United on Monday afternoon (ko 2pm).
Despite not playing a league game for over two weeks, Deon Burton’s men have used friendlies against Birmingham City and Watford as opportunities to put things right from their last game - a 5-2 defeat against Reading.
And although the youngsters have been working on their defensive shape during the exhibition matches, Harmon is confident Albion’s attacking quality will make the difference as they look to do the double over the Magpies this season.
“The friendlies have been a good chance for us to work on some things that we needed to put right from the last game,” said Harmon.
“It’s nice to get some minutes back in our legs and sometimes it’s difficult to go two or three weeks without a game. So it’s important to get plenty of minutes in the tank, but enough that we’re fresh going into the Newcastle game so we can, hopefully, get three points because it’s a massive opportunity for us.
“The last result did flatter Reading a bit, but it certainly wasn’t our best performance either. We have to put right what happened against Reading on Monday against Newcastle.
“When we went down 4-2 we were still pushing on a little bit and then when they hit us on the counter-attack, it knocked the wind out of our sails.
“For that reason it’s been good to have had a few weeks to work on those things, and then we’ve had the friendlies to see how well we’ve done improving on them. We’ve done a lot of work on our defensive shape and I believe we have more than enough quality going forward in all areas of the pitch.
“In an ideal world, it’d be us producing a good performance and getting a win. But that isn’t always the case. 23s football is a learning curve but you have to go into the game wanting to win, it doesn’t matter what level it is.
“The lads have got a great mentality and we’ve been unfortunate not to win some games over the last few months, but it’s about getting that first win when you're in a bad run to get a good spell going again.
"So we have to make sure we take what we’ve been practising over the last few weeks into the game on Monday.”
