Luke Dowling

They can look really good, but I only look at a list and think that's good on what's achievable.

And I just felt by putting Slavin on the management list for the owners and Mark Jenkins in the summer, he was achievable.

And the feeling that you get when you interview him, the feeling that you get when you're in his presence is exactly the feeling I got when I first met him at Heathrow Airport in the summer to interview him and have a chat with him.

And I left, I knew he would be our manager or I knew I wanted him to be our manager because he has got this aura about him.

He's got the experience that we know and hence why we wanted to speak to him.

but it's just the way and I think it can sometimes get lost this day and age with people being head coaches and people having people in the position that I'm in I think the man management side of the game can get lost sometimes and the way he manages people is very very very good and you know the respect level that he's got from everyone at the club from top to bottom is massive and to go along with that tactically he's a student tactically he's aware he knows the game and his people skills first class so I think

I think he's one of them players, you know, that you have an opinion of and you've seen play, you know, when you've gone to watch West Brom or you've seen play when he plays against your teams.

And so you have that opinion of him.

And then when you join the club, that opinion is exactly spot on of what, you know, your reaction is in terms of as a player.

A player, he's a very, very, very intelligent player.

We all know the wonderful left foot he has, but the calmness he brings to the team, his ability to pick a pass, his set pieces.

I don't think we'll find someone like that for a long, long time at the club that offers that.

But then, you know, you look at the last two seasons, he's probably not played as much as you'd like to.

But then the way he conducts himself around the club, you know, he's club captain.

You can see why he is club captain.

Nothing's too much for him.

Wants to do stuff in the community.

The way he's been during lockdown with, you know, helping the community out.

the Albion foundation has been, you know, brilliant.

And, and that is Chris, you know, it's, it was a difficult conversation, David, because with the, the lockdown that we've had and Chris coming out of contract, I was wary of when to talk to him because we wanted him to be focused on these last nine games, but also give him the respect that we don't want to get to the end of the nine games and then just say, thanks very much because people will start asking questions.