Brooker ponders contract offer

The talented winger is reluctant to put pen to paper until he feels confident he has a first-team future at the club.

Most of the squad sorted out new deals last summer. Brooker's situation, however, is still unresolved.

"We had talks in the summer," he revealed. "They were put on hold for a while and now they've finally come to the top of the pile again.

"I've been offered a contract but as yet I haven't signed it. I'm just trying to weigh things up at the moment, because obviously I want to be playing first-team football.

"I don't really want to be committing myself to a team if I am not going to be a regular in the side.

"All the finances and length of contract are sorted. It's just in my mind whether I have got a long-term future playing here.

"Obviously I don't want to end up on the bench every week. I've got to find out if I am going to definitely be involved in the coming years.

"I am just going to have a long old think about things."

Brooker fears history could repeat itself. He won the Third Division championship under Micky Adams at Fulham, but then made only ten League appearances in his last three seasons with the South Londoners.

The Hammersmith-born enigma took part in all except five League games in each of Albion's title triumphs in the past two seasons after Adams re-signed him.

He kicked off the current campaign in top form, scoring in the opening day win at Burnley and starting the first eight matches, including another goal at Portsmouth.

Minor injuries, a rare red card in Steve Coppell's first away game in charge at Crystal Palace for a winger's tackle which gave away a penalty, and inconsistency have all contributed to a stop-start spell for the 26-year-old.

Brooker had not been in-volved in a total of eight matches this term prior to an influential first start since December 10 at Coventry last Saturday.

Talks with Coppell have allayed some of the apprehension Brooker was feeling about his future at the club.

"I went and saw him a couple of weeks ago, because I wasn't playing regularly at all," he said. "Obviously every player wants to be playing.

"I just asked him what my situation was at the club. I was a bit worried because I'm out of contract at the end of the season.

"He cleared a few points up for me. He said he would like to go back to a 4-4-2 but he is waiting for the right time and for all the right players to be fit to do that.

"He's not really talked to me winger to winger, more just as a manager to one of his playing staff.

"I appreciate he was a class winger in his day and obviously knows what wingers can do. Hopefully I can do enough for him to be in the side."

Brooker clinched his recall in unlikely surroundings. Coppell watched him play an inventive part in a 2-1 win for the reserves in the Sussex Senior Cup at East Preston five days before Albion were sent to Coventry.

"It wasn't the best place to go or the best competition you want to be doing it in, but if you are picked you've got to have the right attitude," Brooker acknowledged.

Brooker operated in the same role, that of a roving right winger, at Highfield Road last Saturday.

He played a key part in one of Albion's most enterprising performances of the season, despite the blank scoreline.

Coppell spoke afterwards of the need for the wiry wide man to be forward thinking rather than taking the "safety first option."

Brooker said: "Most managers are like that with me. They don't mind me losing the ball as long as I am positive and don't have negative thoughts in my mind, passing the ball sideways or backwards.

"If I can do that regularly then hopefully I can get a decent run in the side.

"Sometimes you don't see the ball for 20 minutes in a game. You're a bit cold when you do get it and you think you have got to do something special.

"That is the way wingers are unless you are a world class one. I think most wingers are inconsistent."

Albion need 'Bozzy' to be buzzing for the rest of the season to aid their fight against relegation.

That would enhance his prospects of becoming a regular again, which in turn would help persuade him to sign that contract.