West Bromwich Albion boss Alan Irvine is delighted to have kept hold of Craig Dawson.

Dawson came close to joining today's opponents Burnley over the summer.

"I worked at it because I felt all along he simply wanted to be given a fair chance, wanted to be given the opportunity to stake a claim for a place in the team. I told him I would give him that opportunity," the head coach said.

"All I could say to him was 'Trust me, if you are in the team and you play well, you will stay in the team'. I have looked him in the eye and told him that and I won't go back on that. But he has to play well.

"It's difficult to know exactly what happened before but my feeling was he had perhaps been in the position where he got in the team but as soon as one of the senior players were available they jumped straight back in.

"There comes a point for a young player where that isn't acceptable any more, I think Craig had kind of got to that point.

"He will only go out of the team if he is injured, suspended or if he doesn't play well, not because he is a great lad to have around the place, which is one of the things he felt was the case in the past."