West Brom goalkeeper Alex Palmer will this weekend return to the venue where he made his league debut for Albion – in the time since he has made himself a key player of the squad
The date is 24th May, 2015. West Bromwich Albion have enjoyed a storming end to the Premier League season under winter arrival Tony Pulis, but they’re on the beach at the Emirates Stadium on the final day of the campaign and are swept aside by Arsenal, who are playing the game as though they’re schoolkids in the playground. It’s an otherwise pretty forgettable afternoon in the proud history of Albion, but it’s a day that Alex Palmer is unlikely to forget – it’s a day he was named as a member of the first-team squad for the first time.
Still only 18 years old at that point, Palmer – who had been fourth choice behind the injured Ben Foster, Boaz Myhill and fellow academy product Jack Rose – had no previous senior experience, but that would be the first glimpse of the role which was his aim to fulfil. Being number one at Albion would be Palmer’s goal.
Years and years of loan spells, development football and an overall requirement to be patient would follow. There were openings here and there when Palmer would be required to make the step up and make up the numbers, if Foster or Myhill had picked up injuries. Palmer learned his trade at nearby Kidderminster, the place of his birth, in the non-league and then had brief outings at Oldham and Notts County as a keeper in his early 20s.
Back at Albion, with Foster having left and with Myhill having hung up his boots to take up a role on the club’s coaching staff, Palmer wasn’t yet deemed ready to be exposed to first-team football at that level. Albion, with those blissful parachute payments which feel a distant memory these days, splashed out on Sam Johnstone on a four-year deal and the number one spot was again filled for the foreseeable future.
“I look at Alex and it’s only my opinion, but for what it’s worth I think he’s one of the best – if not the best – of the keepers in League One,” Appleton told BirminghamLive midway through his loan. “I think very highly of Alex, I think he knows that. We worked really hard to get him in. We watched him 3 or 4 times last season at Plymouth so we knew what he was about.
“I knew Alex previously anyway, although I’d never worked with him because he’d always been in different age groups to the ones I was working in. It was an absolute no brainer for us when we had the opportunity. He’s been great. He’s not had an awful lot to do, but when he’s had to make big saves at big moments he’s done so.”
In 2021, and with Albion back in the Championship, Palmer was finally getting closer to what he’d sampled back at Arsenal six years earlier. Arsenal, fittingly, were the side who Palmer made his long-awaited debut against, although the night itself – through none of the young lads’ fault against high quality opposition – proved to be a pretty punishing ordeal.
Palmer’s first taste of Championship football, ironically, didn’t come in an Albion shirt. He was borrowed in emergency circumstances by Luton and played a couple of times. The first, at Middlesbrough, he didn’t cover himself in glory in but Palmer atoned days later when he kept a clean sheet at Coventry City – and even collected a rare assist for winning goalscorer Elijah Adebayo.
Back to Albion, then, and Palmer – still awaiting his league debut at the age of 25 – agreed a new four-year contract. Steve Bruce challenged him and David Button, in the absence of the departed Johnstone, to battle for the number one jersey. Button was given the nod having kept at the back end of the season before, but it proved to be an error of judgement and Palmer immediately made a positive impression at Preston, even in defeat. A first clean sheet followed against former loan club Luton a week later, but then Bruce was gone.
Carlos Corberan, a goalkeeper previously himself, oversaw a rapid rise and Palmer did more than his bit, pulling off some stunning saves in the months that followed before that untimely injury in training which thrust Corberan’s plans and hopes of promotion up in the air while Palmer sat out weeks’ worth of games.
The sliding doors moment arrived this summer. Luton again came calling, this time as a Premier League team and keen to have Palmer back on a permanent basis. The goalkeeper, in a stance seldom seen in modern football, decided against the opportunity of testing himself at a higher level and explained how he wished to remain at Albion, in order to take advantage of the fact that, finally, he was the number one – and, hopefully, enjoy top flight football in an Albion shirt.
There have been errors. There are still, even now, things that can be improved in Palmer’s game, but as a 27-year-old goalkeeper he could be in situ for many years to come if form and fitness allows. Corberan, too, has been pleased by his personality in the face of those mistakes – at Bristol City recently, for example, where he almost cost Albion a goal in the first half but ensured they’d take a point in the second.
At Watford, he was outstanding. So too was he at Leeds. Against Millwall, with Albion toiling in front of goal, Palmer kept the back door shut and the penalty out. Certainly, since his debut a little under 12 months ago, Palmer retains plenty of credit in the bank and is now the undisputed first choice.
“He has been better this season when the ball arrives to him,” Corberan said. “I have seen him more aggressive in the corners of the area, taking more responsibility to punch the ball and to be more dominant in the box. Of course he has helped in the last games to make saves which is helping the team a lot to get at least a point. Without any type of doubt it’s been an improvement – the challenge is to keep the consistency of this improvement.”
It’s fair to say that, although goalkeeping hasn’t often been an issue in the last decade at Albion, who have boasted England internationals for sustained periods in that time, they’re finally seeing the player they’ve developed behind the scenes during that spell – and Palmer’s patience, learning curves on loan and his ambition to position himself as the club’s first choice goalkeeper are finally bearing fruit.