West Brom boss braced for special Chelsea game

Clarke worked under Jose Mourinho at Stamford Bridge but has no regrets about branching out and eventually becoming number one at Albion this season.

He said: “It would be wrong to say it is just another game because I had a great association with Chelsea.

“Nobody can take that away from me. It was good times. But I’ve moved on and I have to do the job now for Albion.

“I could probably still have been at Chelsea now if I’d chosen to take that path.

“I decided to take away the safety net to challenge myself and push myself. It’s a decision I made a number of years ago and I’m comfortable with that decision.”

Clarke is mindful of not getting carried away with West Brom’s current success.

He said: “The supporters have to enjoy this moment because they know, the same as I know, there will be days over the coming months that won’t be so good, and weeks that won’t be so good.

“This game is a good benchmark for us. It’s not dissimilar to when Manchester City came a couple of weeks ago and we wanted to challenge ourselves against them.

“We lost the game but we came out of the game with a higher self-esteem, if you like, because we knew we’d given them a really tough game.

“We’ll aim to do that again against Chelsea on Saturdays - but this time we’re looking for a positive result.”