Mark Hughes’ January signing from Chelsea has been struggling to shake off a hamstring injury that has restricted his appearances and even hampered the highly-rated 28-year-old defender when he has started games.
But fit-again Bridge completed 90 minutes in the 4-2 cliffhanger against West Brom on Sunday and is setting himself some targets as Mark Hughes’ men step up their pursuit of a Europa League place for next season.
Wayne, who has played 30 times for England, is the first to admit that he has yet to live up to his top billing and said: “I know that I can do better and I mean to make sure that I do. That’s something I will be working on. The hamstring is fine now, but I need to get in some more training games.
“The lads here have made sure I settled in quite quickly, but I’ve not played as much as I would have liked. Injury has held me back a bit, and now I just hope I can play in all the games the rest of the season.
“Europe is still within our grasp, but we’ve got to go into every game as we did against Hamburg, week in week out. We showed that night we’re definitely capable, and we’ll have more rest time now with no UEFA games.
“It won’t be easy, we might have to win all our games to push on for a place. We have to aim for three points every week. I can’t believe how good our home form is, then we go away and it doesn’t happen. That must change.”
Bridge has seen team-mate Robinho take flak from various quarters for some of his performances, but the left-back is puzzled when the Brazilian is accused of making Bridge’s job harder by not tracking back on the flank.
Far from considering that Robi’s style leaves him exposed, Bridge said: “I’m happy to play with him, he’s a genuine attacking player. When I came here I knew that Robi was going to be more attack-minded than defensive.
“That’s why we play three in midfield, and hopefully they can help me out as well. Obviously, I want to be playing better, and hopefully my one-on-ones will get better and Robi can do all his attacking.
“You can get exposed at full-back, two versus one. I like to do that - push on - as well, and hopefully Robi can expose the other full-back. It’s a bit of cat and mouse. I want to do as well as I can and let Robi do all he can going forward.”
