Steve Bruce reveals player he believes will be future West Brom captain

West Brom manager Steve Bruce has pointed to Republic of Ireland defender Dara O’Shea as someone he really likes out of the current crop of players and claims the 23-year-old has the potential to be the ‘future captain’ of the Baggies.

The comments come as a bit of a surprise following the struggles of O’Shea to break into the current Albion side but will be welcomed greatly by both the player himself and fans of the Baggies.

Prior to his injury in September 2021, the Irish defender was arguably West Brom’s best player - certainly one of the bright sparks in what ultimately ended up a relegation campaign.

There were high hopes for him this season but a fractured ankle on international duty put him out of first team football for five months and derailed a lot of the progress he had been making.

Since his return, he has failed to hold down a place in the eleven after a number of sub-par performances though in his defence, being thrown in out of position at right-back after such a long spell out was never going to be ideal.

It became clear quite quickly for the manager that when playing, it has to be at centre-back for O’Shea but the positive performances of others has now got him biding his time.

If doubts were beginning to appear in his mind about his future at the Hawthorns though, they have been quashed emphatically by Bruce who shared some very promising words about the Ireland international.

“I like Dara O’Shea, I think he will be a future captain of this club – I really do,” claimed the manager [via Express & Star].

“From what I have seen so far, he has got a bright future.

“He had a bad injury at the start of the season and had been out for six months.

“I put him in at right-back because I wanted him in the team. Maybe that was a bit too early and the wrong call for me. But he has got a bright future.”

A message from the editor:

Thank you for reading. BirminghamWorld is Birmingham’s latest news website, championing everything that is great about our city - reporting on news, lifestyle and sport. We want to start a community among our readers, so please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and keep the conversation going.