Isaac Price Aims for Premier League Test Against Newcastle
Isaac Price is not heading to Newcastle for the occasion. He is going for the test.
The West Bromwich Albion midfielder, fresh from a match-winning brace against Burnley, is relishing the chance to measure himself and his in-form side against Premier League opposition when they face Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup second round on Wednesday night.
Albion travel to St James’ Park sitting second in the Championship and riding the early-season wave under head coach James Morrison. Newcastle, who opened their league campaign with a 2-2 draw against Liverpool on Tyneside, represent a sharp step up in opposition – exactly what Price wanted.
"All the lads are buzzing," he told BBC WM Sport. "They are the games you want to be drawn in, in the cup – to go and play away at a Premier League team and at a place where we can go and show our quality. I can't wait."
Price underlined that quality on Sunday, striking twice in a 3-1 win over Burnley that maintained Albion’s perfect league start. It followed their first-round EFL Cup victory over League Two side Rotherham United, a professional job that quietly set up this eye-catching tie in the North East.
The mood is upbeat. The memory is not.
Price has not forgotten how quickly it all unravelled last season. Albion also began brightly 12 months ago, only for results and performances to tail off under Ryan Mason. By the end, a club with Premier League ambitions found itself fighting just to stay in the Championship.
That collapse still stings – and it shapes the way Price talks now.
"Every game in the Championship is tough and it doesn't matter who you play," the Northern Ireland international said. "We had this last year – we started really well and it went downhill pretty fast, so it is about keeping our feet on the ground, keeping a level of consistency in performances to make sure that doesn't happen again."
He knows the numbers behind the narrative. Too many soft goals conceded. Not enough scored at the other end. The basics that decide seasons.
"You are always learning as a player, even the lads who have played 2, 3, 400 games," he added. "It's about managing games and moments – we conceded a lot of goals that we shouldn't have last season and we didn't score enough at the other end.
This year I want to be a key player where I show that that can't happen and I want to be a leader in this team to make sure it doesn't happen."
Morrison’s stamp on a scarred squad
The shift in tone around the club owes plenty to the man in the dugout.
Morrison’s appointment as interim manager in February, following the sacking of Eric Ramsay, changed the direction of a season that was drifting towards disaster. The former Scotland international, who made 341 appearances for Albion, stitched together a ten-match unbeaten run that dragged the club away from the trapdoor to League One and earned him the job permanently.
His presence carries weight in the dressing room without ever needing to be shouted about.
"It's helpful for all the lads," Price said. "He knows the club inside out. He's really humble – you wouldn't know day to day how many games he played and how many goals he scored for West Brom because he doesn't talk about it, but he is a legend and the lads love him.
He's good around the changing room and he understands what we need. We look really good on the pitch at the moment, so it is about building the consistency which is what he wants."
That word again: consistency. It hangs over everything West Brom say and do.
Newcastle away in the Carabao Cup is a glamour tie on paper, a free hit in the eyes of some. Price does not speak like a man treating it as a night off from the grind of the league. For him, it is another measure of whether Albion have really changed – in mentality as much as in results.
If West Brom can take the resilience of Morrison’s rescue act, the sharpness of their start, and the lessons of last year’s slide into a hostile Premier League arena, then Wednesday will offer more than just a cup upset to chase.
It will show whether this version of Albion is built to last.
