Kyle Bartley has been West Brom’s hero this season | OneFootball

After crashing out of the Premier League last season, West Brom’s current campaign in the Championship hasn’t gone as smoothly as fans would have hoped at the beginning.

Having appointed Valerien Ismael as their new manager at the start of the season, the club sacked the former Barnsley boss after just seven months in charge.

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Since then, the Baggies have taken a punt and put Steve Bruce in charge to see if he can steady the ship and get the club in with a shout of securing promotion back to the Premier League by the end of the season.

Despite the change in management, one man who has been a consistently impressive performer for the Midlands club this season on the pitch is Kyle Bartley.

West Brom signed the centre-back during the 2018 summer transfer window from Swansea City. Since then, the 30-year-old has gone on to make 133 appearances for the Baggies across all competitions, chipping in with eight goals and four assists along the way.

With only two West Brom players racking up more league minutes than the defender this season, Bartley’s performances have earned him an overall rating of 7.2/10. That makes him the highest-rated Baggies player to have started more than five league games according to WhoScored, showing just how important he has been for the team.

From a defensive point of view, the Englishman has racked up a seasonal total of 204 aerial duels won, 26 tackles, 31 interceptions and 16 blocks with an average of 4.1 clearances per game, highlighting just how reliable a defensive unit he has been at the back this term.

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Hailed as a “leader” by former West Brom manager Sam Allardyce, Bartley – who is currently earning £15k-per-week according to Salary Sport – has definitely been one of the club’s shining lights in what has been a turbulent season in the second tier.

With Bruce recently revealinggames, this will be a big boost for their chances of picking up their first win since the former Newcastle United boss took charge.