West Brom starlet Harry Whitwell working on key ingredient for next term

Whitwell played a starring role this week as Richard Beale’s under-21s brought their campaign to a close with a 4-2 home win over Leeds, which featured a fine late goal after a marauding run from range and strike into the corner.

Whitwell told the Express & Star: “I’m always trying to get consistency in my game, that’s what first-team managers look at. A big focus of mine has been off the ball this year, being hard to beat and not letting people get the ball off me.

“There weren’t many occasions where it happened in the game. With the ball you just have to be reliable when it opens up for you.

“One of my strengths is to drive with the ball, take people on and that happened with the game. It was a nice finish, something I would like to keep improving in my game, it’s not happened as much as I’d like this season but it’s something I can take into next season.”

The midfielder, who is from Oxford but joined the Baggies at under-12s, added: “To finish the season with three points was what we’d been working on for a while.

“All our hard work throughout the season built to it and it was nice to finish the season on a good note.”

Whitwell is a regular in training with Albion’s senior squad and made his first-team bow in January home FA Cup success over National League Aldershot Town, in which he came from the bench to assist a goal.

Baggies youth coach Beale, meanwhile, passed judgement on the under-21s trialist duo who featured in either half, understood to be Everton’s Ed Jones, 19, and Mo Diomande, 18, of Wolves.

Beale said: “At this time of year we’re looking at lots of players in training and it’s good we had the time to look at them in a game.

“It’s a tough business, a tough industry, they’ve got to come in and show us they are better than we already have or more to the point have the potential to possibly become a first-team player, that’s not easy to do in one or two games. Both acquitted themselves reasonably well.”