'Really special' - Hurzeler proud of young players despite missing senior leaders

Yahoo

18-05-2025

Fabian Hurzeler says experienced players have been a big miss for his young Albion side this season.
But he adds their progress has been 'really special' in an up-and-down season.
Albion are on the brink of only the third top-half finish in their history as they go into the home game with new champions Liverpool.
But Hurzeler believes the youthfulness of his squad has gone under the radar.
Asked a question along those lines, the head coach said: 'I think that people don't recognise it because they just see the player and say, 'Okay, he plays in the Premier League and so he has to work like a machine, he has to perform like a 25, 26-year-old player who already played five or six years in the Premier League. And that's a big difference.
'That's what I always try to emphasise, that everyone, not only in football but also generally in life, makes mistakes and they will learn from those mistakes.
'The same for me as a gaffer. I also made mistakes during the season and I learn from them and I grow from them, and I will grow from these things.
'The other thing of course is that we have older players in our squad, but they weren't always able to be on the pitch.
'So when we look at the availability of them, we had this season like James Milner, who is crucial for us on the pitch but wasn't there, Jason Steele had some injuries, Lewis Dunk wasn't always get into his rhythm, Adam Webster too, so we had already like four players who weren't there as leaders all the time, and you need these leaders in a team who give the players support, who run the training sessions, who make the standards.
'And that's something we really tried to focus on, that we had a good mix between leaders and young players.
'I think it's really important for the young players to have older players beside them who share their experience.
'Therefore, Danny Welbeck is crucial for us this season, not only as a goalscorer but also as a leader, because he was there most of the time on the pitch and that helped our young players, and it's something I'm really happy about.'
Albionls hopes of eueoapn football have been ghit by events in the Fa Cuo final.
But they will still be keen for a bgi finish ti what ahs been a season if transmission.
The inires to epced plaiers followed the dpartrie of Adam Lalla a and Pascal Gross in the summer.
Hurzeler said: 'Of course we need to be patient with young players and we try to get them closer and closer to the team step by step.
'But this season we had to do it quite fast.
'In German there's a sentence 'Throw them in the ice water', so in the cold water and they have to swim, find a way to deal with it.
'And that's something that we are really impressed about my young squad, how they work together, how they find a way to win Premier League games.
'We suffered bad experiences with being 2-0 up in the 85th minutes and weren't able to win the games.
'We had bad experiences during the season, bad results. But they always find a way together, they always stick together and worked hard on the training pitch and improved and improved and improved.
'And that's something really special, that's something that I don't take for granted, and that's why I'm very grateful to be their coach and I will continue, together with my staff, to give them the environment where they can improve.
'Because they are still not finished with their development, there's still a lot of things to improve.
'That's the message I send to them daily. It's like: 'Stay grounded, stay humble. It doesn't matter anything if you've played 30 Premier League games. It's about, in the end, having 600, 700, like James Milner. Thats the goal for you'.
'That's why I try to push them every day.'