Sam Allardyce: West Brom players need to get mentally stronger
Albion boss Sam Allardyce has told his players to become mentally stronger after conceding it will be difficult to improve their fitness levels in the coming weeks.
The Baggies host Arsenal on Saturday in what is their fourth match in 13 days.
Allardyce questioned the fitness of his players following their heavy defeat to Leeds with the boss saying they were “out ran” by Marcelo Bielsa’s side.
With a hectic schedule, though, the 66-year-old believes additional fitness work in training is only likely to lead to the players picking up more injuries.
And that means they have to be stronger in the head if they are to turn around their poor form and start winning games.
“Fitness comes through games but also from pre-season,” Allardyce said.
“I think by looking at where we are at the moment, it’s difficult for me to get them fitter when we’ve got so many games coming up.
“Trying to get them fitter, they’ll probably injure themselves because they’ll have to play a game after doing extra fitness work.
“That would be really silly. What they have to do is to get stronger in the mind.
“You can do many, many, things when you’re strong in the mind – it can make you run further and faster.
“They’ve got to get that determination inside them, and when they feel tired they’ve got to fight that and say ‘I’m not tired, I’m going to run faster, I’m going to run again, I am going to try my best, I am going to keep going’.
“Hopefully that’ll help our situation, but at the moment when I look at the fitness levels of us and Leeds there was a big difference. I could see that.”
