West Brom boss Tony Pulis hopes Jake Livermore benefits from a break

17 September 2017 11:53

Jake Livermore has been handed an extended break by West Brom to stop any mental burnout.

The midfielder was left out of the squad for Saturday's 0-0 draw against West Ham and has been excused from training until Thursday.

He will also miss Wednesday's Carabao Cup game against Manchester City on Wednesday as Albion aim to have him back for next week's trip to Arsenal.

The Baggies have taken the precaution after Livermore's England call-ups, he now has five caps, in the summer reduced his break.

"We had a chat with Jake at the beginning of the week," said boss Tony Pulis. "Jake came to see me.

"He has felt a little bit jaded, mentally more than anything else and we check all of his running stats, and his data and he had dropped off a bit.

"So we are going to give him a couple of days off. We could have done with his energy today with the way the game went. We could have done with Jake.

"Physically he is fine but mentally he just feels a little bit tired.

"I think for the first time going away with England during the summer and then having these two call-ups, I think playing all the time has really, really taken it out of the boy.

"And he is such a good player for us that we don't want to risk him going into a deeper, deeper, deeper hole. He won't play on Wednesday. But hopefully he will be ready to face Arsenal on the Monday."

Livermore, 27, joined Albion from Hull for around £8million in January and has featured 21 times for the Baggies, starting every Premier League game this season until Saturday's visit of West Ham.

Pulis added: "He will be in on Thursday because we play Monday night. He'll have a couple of days away from it. It is nothing negative."

Source: PA