West Brom have Plymouth Argyle to thank after 2019 deal: View | OneFootball

West Bromwich Albion are firmly in the mix for play-off football this season in the Championship.

A number of players are key contributors at the Hawthorns, with one such name, goalkeeper Alex Palmer.

It wasn’t that long ago that he was a regular loanee, with a successful stint at Plymouth Argyle helping get him to this stage in his career.

A successful loan at Plymouth

Alex Palmer wasn’t always afforded playing time week-in, week-out as a West Brom man.

After a few unsuccessful loan spells, the south coast then proved to be the perfect destination for him.

In a summer that saw Ryan Lowe take a number of players with him from Bury to Argyle, the goalkeeper in question also arrived at Home Park.

Palmer went from a Premier League 2 player with no major prospect of first-team football, to a key cog in a League Two side that gained promotion out of the fourth tier.

Palmer led the Pilgrims in appearances that season across the whole squad, a season which was curtailed amidst the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 27-year-old played all 37 league games, all 3,330 minutes alongside three FA Cup outings and a single EFL Trophy outing too.

Appearances alone show just how indispensable the shot-stopper was in green and white, whilst a certain Michael Cooper was chomping at the bit and waiting in the wings.

Another statistic which favours Palmer is the clean sheets - with 14 from 37 games, he had the most in League Two, ahead of David Cornell (Northampton Town) and Tom King (Newport County) to name a couple.

37.8% was his clean sheet record, and Argyle conceded just over a goal a game with him in between the sticks, 39 to be exact.

Palmer pushing for Premier League football

West Brom were relegated from the Premier League in 2020/21 after finishing 19th and have been battling to return to the promised land ever since.

10th and ninth were their two respective finishes since then, missing out on the play-offs, with the goal now to be going one or two steps further in 2023/24.

The trio of Leicester City, Leeds United and Ipswich Town are flying high and so prove to be extremely difficult to contend with. Southampton are equally enjoying a very strong campaign themselves under Russell Martin, and it isn’t easy for West Brom to keep up with this group.

With Carlos Corberan at the helm, though, the Baggies are one of the next best sides in the division and Palmer can continue to make a difference heading into the play-offs, where they will hope to topple two of the aforementioned quartet to seal a Premier League return.

Illan Meslier of Leeds is the only goalkeeper keeping up with Palmer in the league this season on the clean sheet front and, once again, he tends to play every single minute possible.

Similarly to his time with Argyle, Palmer is averaging around one goal conceded a game, a number which is only bettered by Leicester and Leeds, with the Baggies boasting a classic Corberan defence.

Palmer is proving time and time again to be one of the best goalkeepers in the EFL and some credit has to go to Argyle for enabling this to eventually happen.

After he moved on from Home Park, he also enjoyed a loan spell at Lincoln City, where he further propelled his prospects forward to the point that he is untouchable in the West Brom XI. He, and many others, must recognise the role Argyle played in his development.