Kyle Bartley: Being away suits West Brom

The two promotion favourites meet in a Championship showpiece tonight in a game that could see the Baggies make history.

Slaven Bilic’s side will be unbeaten in their opening 10 league matches if they avoid defeat, something no previous Albion team has done before.

Bartley has fond memories at Elland Road after enjoying a loan spell at Leeds in the 2016/17 campaign.

But he is backing Albion to create history tonight.

“Leeds brings back brilliant memories for me personally,” he said.

“It’s a great club with great supporters and a great owner.

“They are doing very well as well but we’re looking forward to playing them.

“Our style of play quite suits us away from home.

“We do a good job of quietening the crowd, hopefully, we will do that again.”

Bartley was part of the Albion side that kept a first clean sheet of the season at QPR on Saturday.

But while that shut-out was a long time coming, the defender never lost faith in the way the team was playing.

“As a back four it’s always nice to keep clean sheets,” he continued.

“It’s not something that we’ve been as worried about as the fans or people on the outside because we’ve known it’s been coming.

“It’s the way we play. We play free-flowing, attacking football, we know we’re going to concede goals at times and take chances.

“But we’ve got total faith in our attacking style of play and we know we’ll score more goals than we concede.”

Bartley has regularly played alongside Nathan Ferguson and Semi Ajayi this season in Albion’s defence.

Both players are enjoying fantastic starts to their Baggies’ careers with Ajayi having been snapped up form Rotherham while Ferguson was promoted from the under-23s.

And Bartley admits he has been hugely impressed with both.

“Semi has been brilliant,” he added.

“We’ve bonded really well and our games suit each other really nicely.

“I think he deserved that clean sheet at QPR as much as anyone in that back four.

“Nathan has also been brilliant. As a young kid coming in he’s shown no sign of nerves.

“He’s really expressed himself out on that pitch and everyone involved with West Brom is absolutely delighted he’s managed to get that goal.

“He’s a really composed player, he’s got a good head on his shoulders, he’s very mature and I hope he kicks on now.”