West Brom star Jeremy Sarmiento has been fired a warning by Chris Lepkowski following Saturday’s defeat vs Sunderland.
West Brom headed to Sunderland in the Championship’s early kick off last Saturday.
It was an exciting game between two technical sides, but the Black Cats emerged as 2-1 victors on the day, with Brandon Thomas-Asante scoring the Baggies‘ only goal.
The game was marred by some controversial refereeing decisions. Fans were unhappy with that and also with the performance of several individuals who failed to impress.
Sarmiento was among those who didn’t deliver his best performance over the weekend, and now journalist Lepkowski has warned the Colombian.
Lepkowski critical of Sarmiento tricks
Sarmiento joined on loan from Brighton in the summer, and quite quickly, West Brom fans realised that Sarmiento was a tricky player.
He’s a winger who likes to play with flair and whatnot. But early on, his flair wasn’t backed up by decent enough performances.
Recently though, Sarmiento has worked his way into the XI and he’s put in some decent displays, scoring the winning goal against Cardiff City last month.
Against Sunderland though, Adrian Goldberg and Lepkowski on The Liquidator Podcast agreed that Sarmiento attempted too many stepovers and tricks against Sunderland, and Lepkowski said:
“He has to be careful with that [doing tricks].”
Lepkowski added:
“You’ve got to really do all the things on and off the ball absolutely bang on, and you can do that if you’re a player of a certain profile, but when you’re a young lad coming in trying to prove themselves, you can really ruin your momentum with that kind of tendency to try something a little bit left-field which I thought he did a little bit too much of on Saturday.”
Sarmiento has to step up after Matt Phillips’ injury
Matt Phillips is facing a few months on the sidelines in what is a huge blow for West Brom.
But it gives Sarmiento and the likes of Tom Fellows to stamp their authority and impress Carlos Corberan going into the second half of the season.
Fellows played nearly an hour on Saturday but failed to impress all that much, putting further pressure on Sarmiento to be a quality, starting winger for the Baggies.
Fans have always hailed him as a quality player with the ability to change games. But like Lepkowski suggests above, the 21-year-old can sometimes get lost in the fanciness of stepovers and tricks and so on, and slow down the tempo of the game.
Whilst it can be entertaining to watch, Sarmiento needs to first earn his stripes.
He needs to step up in the absence of Phillips and provide the goals and assists needed to keep West Brom in the race for promotion.
Up next for the Baggies is a trip to Rotherham United tonight.