Boss makes Tom Fellows 'almost guarantee' prediction ahead of winger's first West Brom return with Southampton

Albion academy graduate and boyhood Baggie Fellows, 22, swapped The Hawthorns for St Mary's last summer in a £10million deal.

Fellows developed into one of the Championship's hottest wingers and Albion's best breakthrough stars in several years having clocked up 96 first-team appearances in under two years as a regular.

He cut an emotional figure departing The Hawthorns late last summer. Fellows made four Albion outings under Ryan Mason at the beginning of the campaign but a sale of the academy graduate was always likely given the 'pure profit' it brought from an accounting perspective, to help ease the profit and sustainability (PSR) financial threat on the Baggies.

Fellows has played 33 times for the Saints this term and generally found himself a first-team fixture. Morrison, in the home dugout on Wednesday, coached Fellows for several years at junior and senior level and knows how the returning winger will feel having left boyhood side Middlesbrough as a 21-year-old. He expects the Saints man to be well-received by the Albion faithful.

"I think I've been in the same boat as Tom when I left Middlesbrough, so I know how he feels," Morrison said on Tuesday.

"I almost guarantee that the fans will give him a good reception, which this club often does with former players. Tom's a great example to the younger players, and I'm really happy for him to see him doing well, but obviously not on Wednesday.

"Knowing Tom very well as I do. He'll try not to let the emotional side affect him. He might try that extra bit hard, but he's got all those things to deal with.

"I think he'll learn a lot from this first game back at The Hawthorns."

Morrison, 39, is set to mark 20 years at The Hawthorns next year after he was brought to the club by Tony Mowbray and has remained in a variety of roles after calling time on his playing career in late 2019.

Fellows is yet to register a goal in his debut season for Saints but has five league assists to his name. He started as Tonda Eckert's side dumped Premier League Fulham out of the FA Cup to reach the quarter-final at the weekend.

One of Fellows' assists came in a 3-2 win against his former club Albion at St Mary's in December, where under Mason the visitors collapsed to a 3-0 half-time deficit before a second-half rally almost yielded a point.

If he is selected on his favoured right flank at The Hawthorns he will come up against home left-back and former team-mate Callum Styles.

Styles, the Hungary international, is widely considered to have been the Baggies' most consistent performer this season.

But Styles has been walking a disciplinary tightrope for several weeks as he sits on nine Championship yellow cards for the season.

Ten cautions before a particularly cut-off point results in a two-match ban, which would further add to the Baggies' defensive woes.

That deadline, however, is reached with Wednesday's 37th league game of the season. So Styles must avoid a yellow for one more match to escape a ban.

Morrison confirmed the tally had been on both he and the full-back's radar, but the boss insisted he has not asked Styles to do anything different in his fully-committed, all-action game.

"He's been on that tightrope now for a few weeks," Morrison added. "He's an intelligent footballer anyway, Stylesy, but I've asked him not to change his game.

"He's a fully-committed player. He's been fantastic this year, Stylesy, so I trust him and I'm really happy with him.

"Yes (we've spoken about it) for a few weeks as ultimately we don't want to lose him because he's a big player for us."