Superficial

West Bromwich Albion are enduring a torrid season due to the pretentious, naïve decisions of leaders who aren't as intelligent as they try to appear

Throw away comments can create a bit of a stir.

In his press conference ahead of West Bromwich Albion’s home clash with Stoke City, Albion Head Coach Eric Ramsey said:

“The table is meaningless to me from the perspective of the messages that I give to the players and the way in which we prepare for an individual game. It’s again, not helpful, I think, to be drawn into the situation as a whole. You have to have that laser focus on day-to-day because, I think, otherwise the whole situation starts to feel too heavy.”

To some this is a coach understandably seeking to reduce the pressure on his players that comes from dropping into the relegation zone, as Albion had thanks to Blackburn Rovers victory against Sheffield Wednesday a couple of days prior. Ramsay wanted his team to focus on winning the next game, not troubling themselves too much over the concern of dropping to League 1. This is known as a systematic approach; focusing on the smaller, more immediate task in hand rather than the larger objective, and is common in sport - for example cyclists in a three-week grand tour race will often say “we take it day by day”, implying the overall race is long, but each stage on each day of the race is important to focus on one at a time.

Eric Ramsay speaks to the press

Yet some Baggies fans felt Ramsay had pedalled the wrong message, and did not react well to his comment. They felt it was tone-deaf; a head coach pretending everything was fine despite the situation Albion are in, akin to crashing into a roadside ditch and seeing their wheels come off.

“How can the table be meaningless?!? We look like we’re going to be relegated, people at the club will lose their jobs, does this PE Teacher not care?!”

Even worse, Ramsay had the temerity to serve what some describe as a “word salad” - a jumble of words and sayings more suited to a LinkedIn post than most football fans care for. Save it for the High Performance Podcast, Eric; your smarter than typical football vocabulary isn’t welcome. Especially from a bloody ‘PE Teacher’ - a tag that I interpret is to deride the fact that Ramsay was a university student rather than a professional footballer, and had only been a head coach in the USA’s MLS prior to taking the Albion job. The fact he has also coached at Chelsea and Manchester United, and was the youngest British person ever to achieve UEFA’s highest coaching badges, is somewhat by the by. Ramsay is literally a student of the game, but that’s not enough to earn your stripes in the English game.

Emotions are running high within the Albion fanbase of late, so perhaps inflammatory reactions to what would normally be unremarkable quotes are to be expected. And perhaps also, the Baggies faithful are tired of those in charge of the club trying to be too clever. This is a reasonable view.

Ever since Bilkul Albion became owners of the club, there’s been a lot of talk about doing things smarter. Initially this was most welcome, given the previous owners had been anything but smart in their approach to running the club, which is why they bought an established Premier League outfit for about £200m and then sold at a monumental loss just eight years later. Bilkul, led by Shilen Patel and Andrew Nestor, were bringing the Moneyball; a data-centric approach born in their US homeland, that would enable the Albion to remain Championship promotion contenders even while cutting the wage bill and selling the clubs’ most sought after talent, in order to remain on the right side of Championship profit and sustainability rules. Sell high, buy intelligently low, take the same successful road that the clever likes of Brighton and Brentford have travelled to the Premier League promised land.

Maybe they had the map upside down. Or maybe they had the wrong map entirely, and should’ve asked to borrow the right one from Dan Ashworth. The road to success has not been located, the club instead seem have veered onto the highway to hell.

Last week, Nestor left Albion. The club afforded him the briefest, tersest of goodbye messages on the club website. The President was no longer deemed fit for office, and it would appear Patel and Nestor had developed serious disagreements on the clubs’ direction of travel. That would explain why, when Ramsay was appointed successor to Ryan Mason, it was Patel who presented him to the media while Nestor was nowhere to be seen.

President Nestor no more

Why had it come to this?

Nestor had previously been open about adopting a “game model” (playing style) that he’d effectively inherited thanks to Carlos Corberan being Albion head coach when Bilkul arrived. The Spaniard favoured a 4-2-3-1 formation and a cautious, possession based style of play. When Corberan left to become Valencia manager, Nestor sought a replacement who would build on the same template but add a bit more attacking verve. In hindsight, this was naïve.

First, Tony Mowbray was appointed - those who remember his first spell at Albion knew this meant cavalier, attacking football that back in 2008 led to goals-a-plenty and a Championship title. That was with a supremely talented (by second tier standards) team however, with several players who had been Premier League standard or would become so later. The 2025 Albion was not the same vintage, with nowhere near the same attacking quality. Nestor had pointed out upon Mowbray’s arrival that “Tony’s recent track record is among the best in the last five years in terms of individual player uplift and squad performance. There is strong alignment on how we are already building out the club’s broader sporting structure and, most importantly, the way we are seeking to build the positive culture we wish to continue to foster here.”

Alas, only three months later Mowbray was dismissed with no positive culture in sight. By the end, Mowbray was openly scathing of the lack of leadership and courage in the team, and of the disconnect between him and the recruitment team, saying:

“When I was here 18 years ago, I was the manager, I picked the players, I coached the players, I sold the players. That’s how it happened but I don’t do that anymore.”

It’s not uncommon nowadays for football clubs to operate in this manner. The head coach picks the team and coaches the players but has little to no input on who is recruited to the squad - that responsibility lies with others now. Clever clubs now have scouts and analysts pour over data and analytics, recommending potential signings up to a Director of Football. In Albion’s case, that’s Ian Pearce. Pearce joined Albion as a scout in 2018 and was promoted to Director of Football in 2023, a role he kept after Bilkul’s takeover. His track record when it comes to recruitment is sketchy to say the least, and it will be interesting to see what becomes of him and his role once the rumoured addition of Dominic Price as Technical Director happens.

Last summer, Nestor went all in on a rookie head coach in Ryan Mason, while Pearce led the recruitment of players who have collectively not impressed. This laid the ground for what has been a grim campaign for the Baggies, and if these incomings really were based on data, the Albion fanbase would love to know who provided the dodgy metrics.

Effectively a whole new defence needed sourcing. Tjorborn Heggem departed to Bologna for an excellent profit, but a genuine left footed replacement was not signed, unless you count left back Charlie Taylor for that role, now known to be a considerable downgrade. Semi Ajayi was released and Kyle Bartley retired, plus Caleb Taylor and Darnell Furlong were sold. The never ever used left back Gianluca Frabotta left for free to join Cesena.

In came Nat Phillips, Chris Mepham, Krystian Bielik, George Campbell, and Alfie Gilchrist. Of those, only Campbell has seemed genuine value for money so far, ironically the only one who arrived without Championship experience. Given Albion’s plan under Mason was to continue the 4-2-3-1 game model approach, signing five right footed centre backs (the most natural position for all of them, even if Campbell and Gilchrist can play right back and Bielik can play in midfield) seemed a bit much and left Albion with a dearth of natural full backs.

In midfield, Grady Diangana and John Swift were released, two players who could often frustrate through inconsistency but who did possess match winning talent and creativity too. Tom Fellows also left, heading to Southampton for £8m, a bargain for the Saints but much needed cash in the coffers for Albion’s PSR constraints. Diangana and Swift were not replaced until January by the loan signings of Jamaldeen Jimoh-Aloba from Aston Villa and Mustapha Hindolo from Crystal Palace, therefore trading two experienced Championship creators for two untested kids. Fellows was supposedly replaced by another Villa loanee, Samuel Iling-Junior - a left footer who looked more comfortable as a left wingback than a right winger, and who Villa recalled last week in order to pack him off to Pisa for the second half of the season. Given Fellows had been so key to Albion’s attack in the last two seasons playing as a proper chalk on his boots type right winger, to replace him with someone of such a different profile was a ridiculous decision.

Tom Fellows, gone but not replaced at all adequately

Up front, Aune Heggebø arrived for just shy of £5m, and his return far this season of eight goals isn’t too bad considering the stark lack of service any Albion striker receives nowadays. Mikey Johnston is the exception to that, with nine assists he’s actually the leading creator in the Championship, but unfortunately for Albion no one else seems particularly interested or capable when it comes to chance creation, unless you count young Ollie Bostock, last seen assisting a lovely goal and then scoring the winner in a cup shootout at Swansea, but not used since. It seems Albion prefer to loan others kids rather than play their own, which doesn’t seem very clever if the plan is to develop and sell players for considerable profit.

The lack of creativity was all too apparent on Saturday, when on a filthy February afternoon, Albion and Stoke delivered a goalless stalemate that was somehow even grimmer than the weather. It wasn’t raining goals at The Hawthorns… it was just raining. The point was hard earned, the clean sheet was welcome, as was Ramsay showing the adaptability he had been credited with by Patel when he first arrived by switching from his usual five at the back approach to the good old 4-2-3-1. Albion weren’t great, but at least there was fight (which had been utterly lacking in the previous game at Portsmouth), and the point lifted the Baggies out of the relegation zone too. The fans in attendance did their bit as well - sensing that despite a lot of disappointment in the players this season, the team needs its twelfth man in the battle to stay up.

Small positives, that can hopefully be built on to eventually drag Albion over the line marked ‘survival’. The jury remains somewhat out on Ramsay however, who has only collected two points in his first five games in charge, and if Albion do drop down to League 1 come May then his appointment as a young and fairly untested manager is going to be severely scrutinised (despite his UEFA badges and obvious high potential as a coach), when the club could have opted for a more experienced Championship operator to oversee their scrap for survival. It seems naïve to the point of recklessness that in a season where Albion were at their most challenged by PSR constrictions, they opted to hire two extremely green head coaches of rather different footballing philosophies. Clever? Not really.

Perhaps the culture Patel seeks to install at Albion is one of developing the young. Bring them in at an early stage of their career, whether player or coach, and aim to see them leave for a healthy profit that can be invested in the next whizz kid. That’s fine if it is the long term plan, but build the foundations first Shilen, upon the knowledge and expertise of football people who know what they’re doing because they’ve done it before.

Overall, Albion fans are imploring the club to get back to basics. No one fails to appreciate that the previous owners landed the club in serious financial conditions, and no one fails to appreciate the work Patel et al have done to steady the ship in that regard. Yet the chronic failure to perform basic squad renewal, or to appoint a head coach who fans can have genuine faith in to get results, and who players can have genuine faith in to develop them to better footballers, is exceptionally disappointing.

Nestor has paid for that disappointment with his job. Mark Miles now returns as “Executive Director” for another crack at being part of the club leadership team, having only left his role as “Managing Director” at Albion last September. Time will tell if he can direct Albion onto safer, steadier ground.

As for Ramsay, he’ll no doubt continue with his systematic approach, preparing the players for the next game (a tough one, away to Birmingham City, who are very strong at home). Taking it day by day, seeking gradual performance improvement, laser-focused on getting Albion the results they need to steer clear of the trapdoor.

Whether his interviews irritate you or not, let’s hope his approach leads to success, and is a catalyst for long term improvements at The Hawthorns.

Let’s hope his appointment turns out to be clever.

Do you feel the Albion board need to get back to basics, or do you think they just lack intelligence and need to bring it in? Let me know in the comments, as always I love to hear your views.