Interview with Ollie Bostock from E+S today
"Wales under-19 international Bostock, 17, is one of the Baggies’ brightest prospects in their next wave of exciting academy youngsters.
The left winger, from Lichfield, has been with Albion since he was six and trained with Carlos Corberan’s first team during pre-season.
He admitted the rise of right-sided flyer Fellows, 21, has given him inspiration.
“It’s good to have someone like that who has come through the academy to show there is a pathway there,” Bostock told the Express & Star. “He’s doing really well at the minute.
“I don’t see why I can’t try to do that as well – to try to be the next one. I didn’t really know him through the academy, I got to be with him a little bit training in the first team, but at the academy I didn’t come across him, he’s a bit older than me.
“It shows you that no matter what people say there are chances there as long as you’re good enough. Tom has taken his chances when he’s played, so it’s always going to be there.
All my football has been at West Brom! It’s been really good, everything I’ve learned, they’ve given me a chance to become better.”
Bostock earned his place as a regular in Richard Beale’s under-21s last season and has picked up where he left off despite an ‘annoying’ calf injury briefly halting momentum towards the end of the summer.
He netted a well-taken equaliser at The Hawthorns last week as Beale’s youngsters gave an exciting performance while somehow falling to a 2-1 defeat in Premier League Cup action against their youthful counterparts from Swansea.
Bostock, who was born in London but moved to Staffordshire as a young child, is a skilful left winger and a strong and confident character, too. He captained Wales under-17s and led them out at a European Championship and is already mixing it with the nation’s under-19s despite not turning 18 until February.
The calf injury forced him out for several weeks and even potentially cost him a senior Baggies debut at Fleetwood in the first round of the EFL Cup in August, where Corberan named several youngsters in his starting XI and a bench full of under-21 and under-18 players as Albion lost 2-1.
Bostock was disappointed, but is not about to let that blow shape his development. He added: “It’s nice to see the boys get their debuts but it was tough. Getting knocked out of the competition, it kind of takes the chance away to get minutes with the first team and show what I can do.
“But my career won’t be covered in one game, so once I get my chance I’ll try to take it and get as many as I can.
“Last season I did well to stay injury-free. This season has been a bit annoying. I was with the first team in pre-season but to get that injury for seven or eight weeks was tough.
“I worked hard in the gym, did my recovery right, so hopefully I can play as many minutes and train as much as possible.
“It was my calf, it was annoying because it didn’t hurt, it was a weird injury! It tests you mentally and makes you more hungry. You miss it so much that when you’re back you can’t take it for granted.”
There is a belief among Albion staff that the exciting talent has the ability and attitude to break into first-team reckoning at some point.
Bostock valued pre-season training under Corberan and his coaches but was not daunted by the significant step up.
“They were welcoming, a welcome group that make you feel part of it,” he said. “You’ve got to believe in yourself. You can’t go up there and think you’re an under-21 with the first team, you are, but you have to be with the mentality you’re good enough to be there, because you are if you are training with them.
“You have to play football the way you always play football. That’s what I try to do, be positive, take people on, don’t change your game because of where you are playing.
“It’s all good experiences and is only going to make you a better player.”
